irds." As no one in the Islands keeps Swans,
these were most probably a family party that had strayed away from the
Swannery at Abbotsbury, on the opposite coast of Dorset, where some
three hundred and fifty pairs still breed annually. I have myself seen
as many six hundred and thirty birds there, the hens sitting and the old
males each resting quietly by the nest, keeping guard over the female
and the eggs. The distance from the Abbotsbury Swannery, which is at the
extreme end of the Chesil Beach, in Dorsetshire, to Guernsey is nothing
great for Swans to wander; and they often, both old and young (after the
young are able to fly), wander away from their home as far as Exmouth on
one side and Weymouth Bay or the Needles on the other; and an expedition
to Guernsey would be little more than to one of these places, and by
September the young, which are generally hatched tolerably early in June
(I have seen a brood out with their parents on the water as early as the
27th of May), would be perfectly able to wander, either by themselves or
with their parents, as far as the Channel Islands, and, as at this time
they rove about outside the Chesil Beach a good deal, going sometimes a
long way out to sea, there is no reason they should not do so. It seems
a great pity that these fine birds should be shot when they wander
across channel to Guernsey, especially when it must be apparent to every
one that they are really private property. If the present long close
season is to be continued, the Mute Swan might well be added to the
somewhat unreasonable list of birds in the Guernsey Sea-birds Act; at
all events, Swans would be better worth preserving than Plongeons or
Cormorants.

138. HOOPER. _Cygnus musicus_, Bechstein. French, "Cygne sauvage."--The
Wild Swan or Hooper[25] is an occasional visitor to the Channel Islands
in hard winters, sometimes probably in considerable numbers, as Mrs.
Jago (late Miss Cumber) told me she had had several to stuff in a very
hard winter about thirty years ago; some of these were young birds, as
she told me some were not so white as others. Mr. MacCulloch also says
that the Hooper visits the Channel Islands in severe winters; and the
capture of one is recorded by a correspondent of the 'Guernsey Mail and
Telegraph' for 4th January, 1879, as having been shot in that Island a
few days before; it is said to have been a young bird, grey in colour.
The writer of the notice, while distinguishing this bird