BRITISH BIRDS. 
275 
quity, was ever more celebrated, oftener repeated, 
or better received : it occupied the foft and lively 
imagination of the Greeks; poets, orators, and 
even philofophers, adopted it as a truth too pleafmg 
to be doubted.’^ “ The dull infipid truth,” how- 
ever, is very different from fuch amiable and af- 
feding fables, for the voice of the Swan, fmgly, 
is flirill, piercing, and harfh, not unlike the found 
of a clarionet when blown by a novice in mufic. It 
is, however, afferted by thofe who have heard the 
united and varied voices of a numerous affemblage 
of them, that they produce a more harmonious ef- 
fed, particularly when foftened by the murmur of 
the waters. 
At the fetting in of frofty weather, the Wild 
Swans are faid to affociate in prodigious multitudes, 
and thus united, to ufe every effort to prevent the 
water from freezing: this they accomplifh by the 
continual flir kept up amongfl them ; and by con- 
ftantly dafhing it with their extended- wings, they 
are enabled to remain as long as it fuits their con- 
venience, in fome favourite part of a lake or river 
which abounds with their food. 
The Swan is very properly entitled the peaceful 
Monarch of the Lake : confeious of his fuperior 
ftrength, he fears no enemy, nor fuffers any bird, 
however powerful, to molefl him ; neither does he 
prey upon any one. His vigorous wing is as a 
fhield againft the attacks even of the Eagle, and the 
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