Birds. 449 



the neighbourhood; and the ground around the trees on 

 which they roosted, it is said, was found covered with the 

 skins of rabbits. Brandon Warren is about thirteen or four- 

 teen miles from Bury St. Edmunds. I wish some cor- 

 respondent who saw the captured birds would tell us their 

 species, and what additional authentic facts he knows respect- 

 ing them. — H. T. Bury St. Edmunds, March 1. 1833. 



Cj/gnus Bemcku. (Vol. V. p. 72. 700.) — I am much in- 

 clined to think that the identical specimen of this swan that 

 was taken upon the coast of Northumberland had been for 

 some time previously in my possession. About five or six 

 weeks before the time at which it was met with, four or five 

 wild swans alighted in the river Ettrick, where one of them 

 was shot, and, one of its wings only having been broken, 

 captured. I learned afterwards that its companions, after the 

 shot, flew down the valley for some miles ; but, finding they 

 had left their friend, they returned, and flew round the place 

 to try and get him along with them. The wounded swan 

 was sent to me, and I put it into a large pond surrounded by 

 trees, and fed it; but it preferred the pondweed [Pota- 

 mogeton] and ikfyriophyllum [most probably M. spicatum], 

 with which the place was full, and seemed not much discon- 

 solate for nearly a week. We observed that the bill and form 

 of the head seemed somewhat different from those of the tame 

 species, and that while swimming it carried its head more as 

 a goose does, that is, w T ith the head and bill horizontal, and 

 not with the graceful arch of the common swan. Cold 

 weather came on, and snow, and then it became restless, and 

 one day a friend who was residing with me, while walking 

 out, met with its track among the snow, and followed it for 

 more than a mile, and brought it back. Two mornings after 

 this we observed its track to the river and back again to the 

 pond. It had done this for the purpose of reconnoitring; 

 for the next morning: its track was again traced to the river ; 

 but it never returned, and was never more seen. I made 

 enquiries not only down the Yarrow, but, by means of fishers 

 and others, all the way down to Kelso, thirty miles from 

 where it entered the Yarrow, and could obtain no account of 

 it, which I must have done, had it been shot or taken, for it 

 could not use its wings in any manner. Of course it must 

 have passed Kelso in safety, and without doubt would reach 

 the sea. I afterwards saw, from a notice (I think in this 

 Magazine, but I cannot find the place), that a swan with a 

 broken wing had been taken on the coast of Northumberland, 

 of a new species, and called Cygnus BewickzV ; and upon 

 comparing the time with that at which mine went down the 

 Vol. VI. — No. 35. g g 



