“This noble bird,” says the author, “is seen floating near the shores, in flocks of some two or three hundred, white as the driven snow, and from time to time emitting fine sonorous, and occasionally melodious songs; so loud, that they might be heard, on a still evening, two or three miles. There are two kinds, so called from their respective notes—the one the trumpeter, and the other the hooper; the trumpeter is the largest, and when at full size will measure from five to six feet from the bill to the point of the toe, and from seven to eight feet from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other, when stretched and expanded. They are sagacious and wary, and depend more on the sight than on the sense of smell. On a neck nearly three feet in length, they are enabled to elevate their heads so as to see and distinguish, with a quick and penetrating eye, objects at a great distance; and by means of this same length of neck they feed in slack tides, by immersing, as is their habit, nearly all of the body, and throwing only their feet and tails out in three or four feet water, and on the flatty shores they frequent, generally beyond gun-shot; the sportsman availing himself, however, of a peculiar propensity (of which we shall presently speak more particularly) prevailing with them, and some of the other water fowl, often _toll_ them within reach of their fire. The swans remain here the whole winter, only shifting their ground in severe weather, from the frozen to the open part of the river, and dropping down into the salts, where it is rarely frozen. They get into good condition soon after their arrival in autumn, and remain fat until toward spring, when, a few weeks before their departure (about the first of March), they gradually become thinner in flesh; and in the latter part of their sojourn here, are found so poor and light, that when shot the gunner gets nothing fit for use but the feathers. Whether this circumstance be owing to their having exhausted the means of subsistence at their feeding-places, or that they are taught by Him who rules the universe, in small as well as great things, thus by abstaining, to prepare themselves for the long aerial voyages they are about to undertake, we pretend not to determine with certainty; there is nothing more wonderful in this, than in the fact, which is notorious, that they, by exercise, regularly and assiduously fit themselves for this continuous effort, to bear themselves through the air to the distance of perhaps a thousand miles or leagues. Large flocks are seen every day rising from the river, and taking a high position, flying out of sight, and apparently moving in a circuit to a considerable distance, again returning to or near the same place, during the last two or three weeks of their stay.