e swans cannot pass through without being
caught.

The snare is fastened to a stake, driven into the mud with sufficient
firmness to hold the bird when caught and struggling. That the snare
may not be blown out of its proper place by the wind, or carried astray
by the current, it is attached to the wattles of the hedge by some
strands of grass. These, of course, are easily broken, and give way the
moment a bird presses against the loop.

The fences or wattle-hedges are always constructed projecting out from
the shore--for it is known that the swans must keep close in to the land
while feeding. Whenever a lake or river is sufficiently shallow to make
it possible to drive in stakes, the hedges are continued across it from
one side to the other.

Swans are also snared upon their nests. When a nest is found, the snare
is set so as to catch the bird upon her return to the eggs. These
birds, like many others, have the habit of entering the nest on one
side, and going out by the other, and it is upon the entrance side that
the snare is set.

The Indians have a belief that if the hands of the persons setting the
snare be not clean, the bird will not approach it, but rather desert her
eggs, even though she may have been hatching them for some time.

It is, indeed, true that this is a habit of many birds, and may be so of
the wild swan. Certain it is that the nest is always reconnoitred by
the returning bird with great caution, and any irregularity appearing
about it will render her extremely shy of approaching it.

Swans are shot, like other birds, by "approaching" them under cover. It
requires very large shot to kill them--the same that is used for deer,
and known throughout America as "buck-shot." In England this size of
shot is termed "swan shot."

It is difficult to get within range of the wild swan, he is by nature a
shy bird; and his long neck enables him to see over the sedge that
surrounds him. Where there happens to be no cover--and this is
generally the case where he haunts--it is impossible to approach him.

Sometimes the hunter floats down upon him with his canoe hidden by a
garniture of reeds and bushes. At other times he gets near enough in
the disguise of a deer or other quadruped--for the swan, like most wild
birds, is less afraid of the lower animals than of man.

During the spring migration, when the swan is moving northward, the
hunter, hidden under some rock, bank, or tree, frequently lure