THE SWAN. 
365 
which has been expressed by wfioogh, whoogh; hut, harsh as 
this cry is, it is far from disagreeable when heard at a 
distance, and moderated in the breeze. The Icelanders, 
whose year may be said to consist but of one long day of 
Summer months, when they enjoy the light of the sun, and 
long night of Winter, when he never cheers them with his 
rays, compare this cry of the wild Swan to the sound of a. 
violin ; and when heard at the end of their long and dreary 
Winter, announcing the approach of genial weather, it is 
associated and coupled in their minds with all that is cheerful 
and delightful. Any person who has seen a common Swan 
lash the water with its wings, as it flaps along the surface, or 
has witnessed the force with which it strikes a boat, when 
the rowers approach the female with her young cygnets, 
needs not to be reminded of the strength of its enormous 
pinions, and their consequent effect upon the air, enabling 
the bird to fly, according to the report of those who have 
watched the immense flocks passing to and from the lakes 
and rivers of the British settlements in Canada, at a rate of 
not less than one hundred miles an hour, — a prodigious 
velocity, when we consider the size and weight of these noble 
birds. It is a prevailing opinion, amounting almost to a 
proverb, that a stroke of a Swan’s wing will break a man’s 
leg. How far this may be strictly true we cannot say; but 
having once seen the pinion of an old Swan laid entirely bare 
to the very bone, and feathers and skin stripped off, by an 
angry stroke on the gunwale of a boat, which it fiercely 
endeavoured to board, we think it not impossible. At all 
events, a blow of its wing can be inflicted to good and fatal 
effect, in case of necessity, as a crafty fox, wishing for a feast 
of Swan’s eggs, found to his cost. The female was sitting on 
her nest at one side of a river, when she observed a fox 
swimming from the opposite shore : rightly judging that she 
could encounter the enemy with much better chance of 
success on water than on land, instead of retreating, she 
boldly advanced to meet him, and, dashing forwards, so bat- 
tered him with her wings, that he was soon killed, in the 
sight of several persons who saw the combat. 
