LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN" WILD FOWL 285 



The last of June or first of July the young are hatched, and soon after the 

 parents lead them to the vicinity of some large lake or stream, and there the 

 old birds molt their quill feathers and are unable to fly. They are pursued 

 by the natives at this season, and many are speared from canoes and kyaks. 

 Although unable to fly, it is no easy task single handed to capture them alive. 

 The young men among the Eskimo consider it a remarkable exhibition of 

 fleetness and endurance for one of their number to capture a bird by running 

 it down. 



Plumages. — The downy young is described by Dr. D. G. Elliot 

 (1898) as "pure white, bill, legs, and feet yellow"; but the young 

 of European swans are all either pale grayish-white or grayish- 

 brown. 



Doctor Nelson (1887) describes a young bird taken in September, 

 apparently in juvenile plumage, as follows : 



The young birds of the year frequently retain the immature plwmage until 

 the last of September. A specimen in this plumage, taken on September 19, 

 had its bill purplish flesh color, the nail and a border along the gape black; 

 the iris hazel, and the feet and tarsi livid flesh color. The plumage of this 

 bird, vehich is now before me, is sooty brownish with a plumbeous shade about 

 the top and sides of the head ; neck and throat all around dull plumbeous ashy 

 of a light shade; back, tertials, and wing coverts dull plumbeous ashy with a 

 silvery gray luster, especially upon the wings. Rump white, lightly washed 

 with ashy, which increases to dull plumbeous ashy on the tail coverts and rec- 

 trices. Quills white, heavily mottled with ashy gray on their terminal third, 

 but almost immaculate toward bases. Under surface white, washed with 

 dingy gray. 



Doctor Sharpless, quoted by Audubon (1840), says: 



The swan requires five or six years to reach its perfect maturity of size and 

 plumage, the yearling cygnet being about one-third the magnitude of the adult, 

 and having feathers of a deep leaden color. The smallest swan I have ever 

 examined, and it was killed in my presence, weighed but 8 pounds. Its plum- 

 age was very deeply tinted, and it had a bill of a very beautiful flesh color, 

 and very soft. This cygnet, I presume, was a yearling, for I killed one myself 

 the same day, whose feathers were less dark, but whose bill was of a dirty 

 white; and the bird weighed 12 pounds. 



Doctor Elliot (1898) also writes: 



The young of this species is gray, sometimes lead color during its first year, 

 and the bill is soft and reddish in hue. In the second year the plumage is 

 lighter, and the bill white, becoming black in the third year, when the plumage, 

 though white, is mottled with gray ; the head and neck especially showing but 

 little white. It is probable that it takes fully five years before the pure white 

 dress is assumed and the bird becomes such an ornamental object. 



Although Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway (1884) make a similar 

 statement, I can not believe that it takes a swan any such length of 

 time to acquire its full plumage. Witherby's Handbook (1921) 

 seems to imply that the pure white plumages of the whooping 

 swan and the Bewick swan are acquired before the second winter. 



