BLACK SWAN. 
Both birds assist in incubation, and in South Australia they lay in June 
and July. 
“ They travel by night, as a rule in a long line sometimes over a 
mile in extent and seem to have a recognised leader : they give a harsh 
note at intervals which can be heard some distance in the clear night air.” 
The following interesting comment on the increase of this bird has been 
contributed by Mr. Frank S. Smith : “ The late Professor Newton had the 
idea that the swan was rapidly becoming extinct. I wrote to him and told 
him that, if he came out here, I would soon (in a day’s drive from my own 
home) tire him out counting swans. As a matter of fact (as I suppose you 
know) they are very plentiful still, and in no danger at all of becoming 
extinct. Scarcely any of our numerous Western District Lakes but has 
its quota ; and I have seen hundreds on some lakes : on one lake, in 
fact, and that a small one, I must have seen a thousand. It was a 
fine sight. Even on lakes in the heart of settlement there are usually 
a few swans, but, as you get away from settlement, they increase rapidly. 
I mention this, as Newton’s Dictionary of Birds, which says the contrary, 
is a standard work. I have made inquiries regarding swans in the north- 
western areas of this State, and over the Murray and everywhere the 
report is the same — aplenty of swans. They are seldom molested nowadays, 
except by the Cockney variety of sportsman ; and, as they breed freely, they 
have no trouble in keeping their numbers up. Also, a few of us are getting 
various suitable spots throughout the State proclaimed ‘ sanctuaries,’ with 
a close season all the year. We have nearly a dozen already, and these 
places will be a big help not only to the swans, but to the ducks and 
other waterfowl. One sanctuary, a swamp near Streatham, is known as 
‘ The Home of the Swan,’ and on its 500 acres of reed-beds swans breed by 
the hundred.” 
Mr. Tom Carter, writing from West Australia, reports : “ Fairly 
plentiful throughout the State. Occurs in great numbers in the Nor'th-west 
in wet years, the breeding-season coinciding with the rains. On the Lake, 
at the Minilya Eiver, I have seen 300 or more birds at one time, and they 
bred there whenever there was a full lake: also on the Nicol Bay Flat, 
south of the Gascoyne Eiver, and on large cane grass clay flats inland 
from Point Cloates when these flats were covered with water. I have 
known the swans to build numbers of nests and lay their eggs, but be 
obliged to abandon them owing to the water drying up before the young 
were hatched. At Lake Muir, in the south-west of this State, I observed 
nearly forty nests in December, 1911, built on a sandbank about twelve 
yards in from the then edge of water. Each nest contained from three 
VOL. IV. 
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