I told you just now how gentle tame swans generally are, but I must add that they are not always so. They are anything but gentle if you go near their nests, or their young ones. When I was a little girl, and was staying at a country house, where there was a large lake, I had a very disagreeable adventure with a swan.
I had been feeding some swans in the morning with bread which I had brought from breakfast. My governess had taken me down to the lake, and we had found the beautiful creatures perfectly tame. In the afternoon, after my early dinner, I took some bread from the table, thinking I would run down and feed them again. I ran off alone, for they had been so gentle in the morning it did not occur to me that there was any danger. Reaching the edge of the water, I found that my friends whom I had fed before had gone off to another part of the lake, but there was a solitary one not far away, sitting among some reeds upon the bank.
I approached it, and tried to make it come to me by calling, and by holding out the bread in my hand; but it took not the slightest notice. Then I threw some bread to it, when I saw its feathers rising as if it was growing angry. But I wanted to make it, either come to me, or go into the water, that I might see it swim; so at last I threw a piece of hard crust at it, calling out at the same time,—“You stupid thing, get up.” It did get up, and more quickly than I expected, for it ran at me as fast as it could waddle, hissing angrily, flapping its wings, and with all its feathers raised up. I was a tall child of eight years old, and could easily have escaped by running, but unluckily I stumbled and fell just as I turned to run away. The swan instantly seized my dress in his bill, while he beat me cruelly with his wings. My screams soon brought a gardener to the spot, who drove the swan away, but I was already dreadfully bruised. Then the gardener warned me solemnly never to go near a sitting swan again: I had disturbed the poor swan while she was sitting on her eggs.
At the top of this page we have a picture of a black swan. I daresay you have seen them, for they are common in England now. They were found in Australia, and are handsome birds with scarlet bills, but their long necks have not the graceful curve seen in the white swans.
CHRISTMAS EVE.
Christmas Eve! the bells are ringing,—
Ringing through the frosty air,