140 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The origin of this legend probably is the trumpeting of the wild-swan. 

 This our friends can hear in the Zoological Gardens ; it is a melancholy- 

 sound, and may be thus written " hwoo hwoo." The tame swan has 

 not this structure of the windpipe, showing, therefore, that it is a 

 distinct species. As the trumpet is useful to the crane, so also is it 

 to the swan. They fly very high, in order that the " hawks should 

 not gain the sky " of them ; they always fly with the wind, and when 

 going with a stiff breeze are said to go at a pace of a hundred miles 

 an hour. 



Many of our friends have probably heard that amusing bird, the 

 trumpeter ( Cariama cristata). Mr. Cholmondeley, of Condover, has 

 a very tame specimen, that wanders all over his house, and goes out 

 walking in the garden with him. In the trumpeter-bird there is a 

 musical apparatus of another kind. The note of the trumpeter is very 

 agreeable to the ear. 



I have lately dissected a Merganser. I find that his trachea is also 

 peculiar: it swells out considerably about the third of its way down, 

 and at the end it bulges out into a box as large as a walnut. The 

 common duck has a curious larynx. At the bottom of the windpipe 

 will be found a bony dilatation. Our readers should examine this for 

 themselves. The female has not this peculiarity, and, strange to say, 

 although the drake has this very peculiar organism, he is not able to 

 quack the females only quack; the males give a short hiss. My 

 friend Mr. Bartlett informs me that on one occasion a gentleman sent 

 him this bony box, which the cook had taken out, and said that it was 

 the ossified heart of a duck. Land and Water. 



-- 



PETKOLEUM. 1 



By Prof. H. B. COENWALL. 



ALTHOUGH it has only lately acquired its present important 

 place among articles of commerce, this valuable product of 

 Nature's laboratory has been known for ages, and was used for me- 

 dicinal and illuminating purposes in ancient times. The petroleum- 

 spring of Zante, one of the Ionian Islands, was mentioned by Herod- 

 otus more than 2,000 years ago; and Pliny says that the oil of a 

 spring at Agrigcntum, Sicily, was used in lamps. The city of Genoa 

 was formerly lighted from the wells of Amiano, in Parma, Italy. 



Prof. A. E. Foote {American Chemist, November, 1872) states that 

 Peter Kalm, in his "Travels in North America," published in 1772, 

 gives a map of the Pennsylvania oil-springs in 1771 ; but, according 

 to H. E. Wrigley, the earliest mention of petroleum in that State 



1 Petroleum, literally rock-oil, from pelra, rock, and oleum, oil. 



