22 
ANATIM. 
Since childhood, this bird has been well known to me from being- 
kept on our own and on friends’ ponds ; but I do not feel satisfied that 
anything I can say on the subject is worth relating. The period of 
the male becoming bold varies of course with the season. A relative 
notes him as being so at Wolf-hill, at the end of January in 1832, and 
not until tfre beginning of March the following year, when the entry 
appears — “ Swan getting bold ; turned on me in the yard” The bold- 
ness is sometimes continued late in the season, though quite uncalled 
for in defence either of mate or progeny. At a very spacious sheet of 
water in Belvoir Park, near Belfast, whither, on the 9tli October, I 
once went to ascertain what species of the smaller bivalve shells it pro- 
duced, I was at that late period as savagely attacked by one of these 
birds as I could have been in the breeding season. On endeavouring, 
at various parts of the lake, to ply the tiny net, my enemy always 
boldly met me, though occasionally having to use his wings along the 
surface of the water. Eventually, finding that he was determined to 
be “ sole monarch of all he surveyed,” I was obliged to forego my 
intended pursuit, rather than incur any risk of injuring the bird in 
self-defence. 
The boldest swan I ever saw was one kept at Wolf-hill for 
many years. When any person appeared within 100 or 150 yards 
of his pond in the breeding season, he hurried, half flying, to assail 
him, and as boldly attacked horses as men, rushing up and striking 
them about the hind legs, to the astonishment of their riders ; fortu- 
nately for the swan, they always dashed forward when struck, instead, 
as we might expect, of trying the effect of their heels against the 
assailant.* 
On the subject of nidification, &c., it was noted by a relative at the 
same place, in 1833 — “Our tame swans had their nest this spring as usual 
beneath the hovel at the side of the dam : the male bird carried the 
* The Cygnus Bewickii, as already mentioned in reference to the individuals which 
have come under my own notice, is gentle at all periods of the year. I have had 
no opportunity of observing, for any length of time, the habits of the great wild 
swan ( C.ferus ). But one of these birds, which has been kept without the company 
either of its own or other species, at Seaview, near Belfast, for the last few years, 
was remarked to call for the first time in the season, on the 26th of February, 1850, 
which it continued to do for some days afterwards, when I was informed of the 
circumstance. It likewise became so far bold as to advance to the banks of the pond 
and leave the water, to march confidently up to a person walking there. This bird 
had before, open-billed, pursued children who ventured on the banks of the pond 
(which is large), so that they had to be forbidden to go there. 
