Colonel Hawker with regard to Swan-shooting on our
southern coasts, but also to a work that I consider as
one of the most delightful ever written on English
ornithology—‘ Ornithological Rambles in Sussex,’ by
A. E. Knox. The number of these northern travellers
that visit our coasts depends of course very greatly on
the weather. The winter of 1870-71 was very remarkable
for the abundance of Wild Swans upon our eastern
sea-shores, and the months of January and February of
the present year 1893 were hardly less so. In this
latter instance the valley of the Nene in Northamptonshire
was visited by more Swans than I had ever previously
heard of, but many of these were Bewick’s, and
some perfectly wild Mute Swans. Sir R. Payne-Gallwey,
whose experience as a punt-gunner is widely known,
states that the Whooper is far less common upon the
coast of Ireland than the smaller species that bears
the name of Bewick. The Whooper breeds in Iceland,
Norway, Swedish Lapland, Finland, Northern Russia,
and across Siberia; in winter it occasionally visits the
Mediterranean coasts, and is common on the Black
Sea and the Caspian in severe weather. The Whooper
thrives well and has frequently bred in captivity; it is
certainly less aggressive with regard to other wild-fowl
than the Mute Swan. Two of these birds in my possession
made several nests, but no eggs were laid therein;
after keeping these Swans for some years upon our
“ fowl-ponds,” I turned them on to the river in the
hope that they would destroy some of the water-weeds
by which it is now annually well-nigh blocked in the
summer months. These two birds strayed to a considerable
distance, and one of them was slaughtered by some
brutal scoundrel with peculiar atrocity; the other came
home and wandered every morning for several months
across our lawn from the river to the wire-fence that
encloses the pond upon which he and his mate had been
previously kept, spent the day in vain endeavours to get
at a solitary Bewick’s Swan on the pond, and returned
regularly to the river at night. At last, moved by compassion,
we let him in to join the bird that I have just
named, but the only result was a furious encounter.
The Whooper, on his journeys across the lawn, solaced
himself with resonant whooping cries, to which the
Bewick Swan occasionally responded with a very distinct
sonorous cry that I can only attempt to represent by
the word “ boong ” rapidly repeated.-