202 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



character consisted in the unmixed black color of the whole culmen. 

 During the discussion which followed, the name Altum's Swan was 

 occasionally employed to indicate the specimens described by him, and 

 hence probably " Cygntis altumW originated. 



Note 2.— Mr, Dresser indicates the year of publication of Yarrell's 

 name to be 1833, probably because the volume of the "Transactions" in 

 question bears that date on the title-page. But the part in which 

 Yarrell's treatise was ])rinted was published in 1830. Besides, Mr. 

 Dresser quotes "p. 445," which also is that on which the treatise be- 

 gins, but the name and the diagnosis first occur on p. 453. 



j^ote 3. — Prof. J. Eeinhardt has already made a statement* which, 

 strauge to say, has generally been overlooked, to the effect that C. 

 L. Brehm's Gygnus islandicus is not synonymous with the species in 

 question. His description in Oken's Isis, 1830, p. 1135, and in Handb. 

 Vog. Deutschl. 1831, p. 832, contains nothing on which the identity can 

 be founded, with the exception that the Iceland Swan was smaller, 

 "frequently G inches shorter," than the Hooper. Besides, the shape of 

 the bill of the two supposed species was indicated to be different, but 

 not in such a manner that anything about the present question is to be 

 concluded from this. It is highly improbable that Brehm could really 

 have a G. heividcii before him without taking notice of the difference 

 between the extension of the yellow on the beak. The matter will be 

 found to be quite certain when we look at the drawing in his Handb. 

 Yog. Deutschl., pi. xli, fig. 1, which, according to p. 1035, is meant to 

 represent C. islandicus. Though drawn by Goetz, and belonging to 

 the class of unlucky representations, it still unmistakably shows the 

 extension of the yellow color, both in the upper and the lower mandi- 

 ble, precisely as in the Hooper, viz, the yellow color is carried to a 

 point under the nostrils, and Brehm expressly assures us that all the 

 figures are drawn from nature. Neither can it be pleaded as a proof 

 against the opinion here expressed that Iceland is stated as the habitat 

 after it is known that (7. hewicldi has never been seen there. Neither 

 do Brehm's small specimens allow themselves to be referred to as any 

 pigmy variety of the Hooper. Prof. J. Eeinhardt, in Copenhagen, 

 has, at all events, kindly informed me that those Swans occurring in 

 Iceland cannot be separated from those of the continent on account of 

 smaller size.t Here it must be remarked that the so-called consider- 

 able difference in size, viz, "6 inches," is not especially extraordinary. 

 The difference between the largest and smallest individuals of the lat- 

 ter species which I have measured (except an unusually small speci- 

 men from Greenland) amounts to 5 inches. 



Note 4. — The uppermost figure to the right on Plate xliv in Kj^r- 



* Natuhistorisk Tidsskrift, II (p. 532). 



X Personally I liave had no opportunity of examining skins of specimens from Ice- 

 land. In the mean time this aft'air ought to be very closely examined. I refer here 

 to the remarkably small si^ecimen of the Hooper from Greenland, included in the table 

 of dimensions on p. 202. 



