WILD FOWL. 
61 
neck, which are the last parts to be forsaken by the color. 
Swans of the sixth year have assumed all the characters of the 
adult, and very old birds have a hard protuberance on the bend 
of the last joint of the wing. When less than six years old, 
these birds are very tender and delicious eating, having the 
color and flavor of the goose; the latter quality, however, being 
more concentrated and luscious. Hearne considers a Swan, 
* when roasted, equal in flavor to young heifer beef, and the 
cygnets are very delicate.’ As these birds live to a great age, 
they grow more tough and dry as they advance, the patriarchs 
being as unmasticable and unsavory as the cygnets are tender 
and delightful. 
“ There are many modes practised in the United States of 
destroying these princely ornaments of the water. In shooting 
them while flying with the wind, the writer just mentioned 
declares ‘ they are the most difficult bird to kill I know, it being 
frequently necessary to take sight ten or twelve feet before the 
bill.’ This I should consider an unnecessary allowance, unless 
driven by a hurricane, but, on ordinary occasions, the bill is 
aimed at, and if going with a breeze at a long shot a foot before 
the bill would be quite sufficient. The covering is so extremely 
thick on old birds, that the largest drop shot will rarely kill, 
unless the Swan is struck in the neck or under the wing, and I 
have often seen large masses of feathers torn from them, with¬ 
out for an instant impeding their progress. 
“ When wounded in the wing alone, a large Swan will 
readily beat off a dog, and is more than a match for a man in 
four foot water, a stroke of the wing having broken the arm, 
and the powerful feet almost obliterating the face of a good 
sized duck shooter. They are often killed by rifle balls thrown 
from the shore into the feeding column, and as a ball will 
ricochet on the water for several hundred yards, a wing may 
be disabled at the distance of half a mile. 
“ These birds are brought within shooting range by sailing 
down wind upon them whilst feeding, and as they rise against 
the wind, and cannot leave the water for fifteen or twenty yards, 
