SWANS 
73 
cause real loss to the farmers. Though the Migratory Birds Convention 
Act provides for just such cases, it requires the nicest discrimination to 
recognize legitimate complaints and to furnish necessary relief in time to be 
effective. This is one of the problems of game protection that can be 
solved satisfactorily only with the honest and sincere co-operation of all 
concerned. Local sentiment among neighbours who personally know 
specific conditions can do more to secure quick action in such matters than 
any amount of official investigation that would otherwise be necessary. 
A peculiar condition affecting ducks occurs on the northern Pacific 
coasts. The immense number of salmon that frequent the western streams 
differ in habit from the eastern fish in that they spawn but once in their 
lives. After working upstream they spawn and die, and are washed ashore 
in windrows to pollute the atmosphere or sink to the bottom where, in 
slack-water pools, they lie in decaying masses. Many of our otherwise 
most palatable and elsewhere eagerly prized ducks feed upon this disgusting 
offal — and on salmon eggs — to such an extent as to become unfit for human 
consumption and even offensive to handle. Local conditions and the food 
they have been subsisting upon are important factors in deciding the 
palatability of different ducks. In the east a wild duck is a wild duck and 
even mergansers and coarse, heavy scoters are sought for eagerly in some 
localities. Undoubtedly a shortage of numbers limits the choice and renders 
the consumer less critical. Wild-celery fed Canvas-back is the synonym 
for high-living in the east, whereas on the prairies grain-fed mallard takes 
first place in the estimation of epicures, and such birds as whistlers (Golden- 
eyes) and bluebills (Scaup Ducks) are often looked upon as next to worth- 
less. In the interior of British Columbia, other standards of excellence 
exist, and on the coast the edibility of wild fowl is strictly limited both by 
species and season because of the fisli-eating habits just described. 
FAMILY — -ANATIDAE. SWANS, GEESE, AND DUCKS 
Subfamily — Cygninae. Swans 
General Description. Very large, white water-fowl. Excepting perhaps the Whooping 
Crane or the Wild Turkey, the largest orAmerican birds. 
Distinctions. Size combined with colour 
is sufficient to diagnose the tw'O American 
swans. Lores (space between eye and bill) 
unfeathered. Bill begins high on the forehead, 
at base is almost rectangular in cross-section, 
and the tip is provided with a Hat nail (Figure 
113). 
Field Marks. Size and colour; our only 
very large, all white bird. 1 Swans fly with 
neck outstretched like cranes but do not trail 
long legs behind. The only other large white 
bird comparable in flight is the White Pelican 
which has black wings and flies with its head 
drawn into its shoulders. (Compare Figure 
1 12 with 91 and 239.) 
Nesting. On the ground, nest of grasses 
lined with down plucked from parent bird. 
Distribution. Most of the swans are found i 
entirely confined to it. In America, one speck 
remains of the other and rarer one nests south 
Figure 112 
Appearance of Swan in flight. 
n the northern hemisphere, but are not 
s nests only in the far north, but what 
near, and across, our southern border. 
1 Other large white birds occurring in Canada (exoept a possible Egret, Glaucous Gull in adult plumage, and 
some Snowy Owls) have more or less black on the flight feathers. 
PJL. 
