cygnicide

— [A]s my eye wandered carelessly across the face of the water, it was electrified by the sight of a splendid black swan, (the only one I had ever seen wild,) sailing out of the rushes on the margin of the lagoon, about fifty yards from my station. […] Perhaps I might as well have galloped at once for my gun, for it is vain to deny that I had already committed cycnicide in my heart.