SWANS ARE ANGELS OF HELL

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 81, 6 April 1938, Page 13

SWANS ARE ANGELS OF HELL

Ji is not generally known what a hell-kite the beautiful swan is, that ilo elegance conceals a savage nature combining treachery of the snake, the ferocity of the wildcat, and the tenacity of the bulldog, writes Frank Croft, in Coronet. Eric Baumer, aged 7, son of a Dortmund manufacturer, was out with Liisa, his nursemaid, on the banks of the River Stever. While the boy waded, Lisa sat under a tree twenty feet from him. Three swans came floating around a be. in the river. Eric was two feet from the bank, in a foot of water. The swans came up to him, formed a semi-circle, stared at him foT a few seconds. Lisa, sensing trouble, called him to come out of the water. She rose. She had taken less than six steps when the centre bird lunged at Eric, grabbed his shirtfront with its beak, and hung on, pulling the child into deeper water with its weight. The horrified girl broke into a run. One of the swans left the water to meet her on shore. It rushed her head on. Although she tried to get past the bird, time was lost, and the swans towed Eric farther out. Lisa ran screaming down the bank for help. Two men ran to the river bank. The lost time had been fatal. The men ran along the bank until they saw the swans mauling the boy, too fai out for a rescue. Neither could swim. The nearest boat was a mile away. Wading was useless. The men could not get within twenty yards of the murder being enacted before their eyes. When a boat came half an hour later, little Eric was beyond saving long since.

Jean Carpin was riding on a bicycle north of Metz in 1925. A flying swan fell on him from the sky. With two vicious thrusts of its beak in as many seconds, it broke hfcs nose and put out his eye. A peasant appeared with a broken rake handle and stood off the bird. A second swan, drawn down, broke the peasant’s arm with a blow

.Some Vicious Attacks

of its wing and bore him to the ground as an onlooker grabbed the club from the peasant, closed with the attacking brute-bird and killed it.

Again, four years ago four black swans were shipped from Australia to the Vintners’ Co., which owns all the swans on the Thames river, England. Scores of people near Richmond Park saw the four black swans battle six white ones as soon as the two groups came within sight. For twenty minutes the river was thrashed to a bloodshot form. The hisses were heard a quarter of a mile. The battlesurface was a cauldron from which ten writhing necks emerged like striking serpents, murderous beaks jabbing. The white group, victorious, covered the river with their feathers and blood.

Swans have killed dogs without number, drowned children, attacked and routed human beings after inflicting serious injuries: swans at battle make fighting dogs look like kittens.

A fox terrier rushed a female swan in a Glasgow pond last May. The male knocked the invaded senseless with a few blows, then picked it up by the neck and drowned it in the stream. Before that in 1930, the fifth of a series of dogs to disappear joined battle with Hercules, the old male swan in the Hampstead Heath swan-pool, London. Up and down the path and over the grass the snarling, hissing mass of fur and feathers rolled. The terrier wilted. The swan with terrible venom beat the animal with wings and beak until it was an inert, blood-covered mass, began to wipe the path with it, and when disturbed by boys coming to the rescue, swam out tc the middle of the pond with the carcass to administer the finishing touches. In two months Hercules

killed eight dogs before a mysterious shot in the night ended his career.

There is evidence enough to hang all swans by their proudly arched necks.