The Whistling Swan in Arizona
The Whistling Swan in Arizona
About the middle of last December, there appeared on Howard Lake, a few miles from Williams, Arizona, a flock of eleven swans. Howard Lake is more of a mud pond than anything else, and in a very dry season there would be very little, if any, water there, I imagine. However, there has been plenty of water the last few years, so much so that perch were planted and I understand they have grown and increased.
Two of these swans were killed, one mounted and the other saved as a skin, and are still at Williams, where I saw the mounted one last week. ,I sent the measurements and particulars to my friend Ruthven Deane, and he confirms what I was practically sure of, that it is the Whistling Swan (Olor columbianus).
Is not this occurrence in Arizona, a rare one? It seems to me these birds must have been away off of their course.
W. B. Mershon
Saginaw, Michigan, March 32, 1919
