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 lures him from his high flight by the imitation of his well-known “hoop.” This does not succeed so well in the autumn.
When the swans arrive prematurely on their spring journey, they resort sometimes in considerable flocks to the springs and waterfalls, all other places being then ice-bound. At this time the hunters concealing themselves in the neighbourhood, obtain the desired proximity, and deal destruction with their guns.
A— related an account of a swan hunt by torch-light, which he had made some years before.
“I was staying some days,” said he, “at a remote, settlement upon one of the streams that run into the Red river of the north, it was in the autumn season, and the Trumpeter-swans had arrived in the neighbourhood on their annual migration to the south. I had been out several times after them with my gun, but was unable to get a shot at them in consequence of their shyness. I had adopted every expedient I could think of—calls, disguises, and decoys—but all to no purpose. I resolved, at length, to try them by torch-light.
“It so happened that none of the hunters, at the settlement had ever practised this method; but as most of them had succeeded, by some means or other, in decoying and capturing several swans by other means, my hunter-pride was touched, and I was most anxious to show that I could kill swans as well as they. I had never seen Swans shot by torch-light, but I had employed the plan for killing deer, as you already know, and I was determined to make a trial of it upon the swans.
“I set secretly about it, resolved to steal a march upon my neighbours, if possible. My servant alone was admitted into my confidence, and we proceeded to make the necessary arrangements.
“These were precisely similar to those already described in my limit of the long-tails, except that the canoe, instead of being ‘a dug-out,’ was a light craft of birch-bark, such as are in use among the Chippowas and other Indians of the northern countries. The canoe was obtained from a settler, and tilled with torch-wood and other necessary articles, but these were clandestinely put on board.