Show do swan swans sin sine before they die T the story that tells of swans singing before death is very old and of course is founded upon fancy the idea has been brought down from ancient myths the voice of tile swan is extremely harsh and disagreeable without a single musical note in it and no good reason can be found for likening some of the worlds sweetest poets to this unmelodious melodious voiced fowl the only approach to a verification we have ever seen is the following clipped somo some years ago from a virginia newspaper A sporting friend recently returned from a foray upon the river below mount Vernon was the guest of a venerable and highly intelligent lady who has always lived on tho the potomac speaking of the swan she gave it as her decided opinion that this bird was in the habit of singing or making a plaintive noise when dying the reason she gave for entertaining this belief was that on very many occasions in tho the last GO 50 years she had been awakened at night by a sweet and exceedingly sad noise something like the tile tones of a flageolet coming over the water and that on every subsequent morning a dead swan was found to be floating on the tile water or to have been washed ashore pittsburg dispatch |