BARNACLE GOOSE 233 



Head, neck, and throat black ; forehead, cheeks, and chin white ; 

 a black stripe between the eye and bill ; mantle lavender-grey 

 barred with bluish black and white ; wing and tail feathers blackish ; 

 breast and belly greyish ; vent and tail-coverts pure white ; flanks 

 barred with grey ; bill, legs, and feet black. Length, twenty-five 

 inches. 



The present species is not nearly so abundant as the brent, and 

 not so^ exclusively marine in its habits. It sometimes visits inland 

 districts, and although it feeds on the mud-flats like the brent, it 

 leaves them as soon as the tide rises, and repairs to some grassy 

 bank of a river or lake, where it feeds. The breeding habits of this 

 species are not known ; it is beHeved to have its nesting-grounds in 

 Spitzbergen and Nova Zambia. 



Mute Swan. 



Cygnus olor. 



Bill reddish orange ; the nail, nostrils, lores, and basal tubercle 

 black ; plumage pure white ; legs and feet black. Length, sixty 

 inches ; weight, about thirty pounds. 



The mute, or tame swan, is as well known to most people as the 

 turkey, goose, and pheasant, and, like the pheasant, is supposed to 

 be a foreign species, said to have been first brought from Cyprus to 

 this country, by Richard I., about the end of the twelfth century. 

 As a semi-domestic species it exists throughout the British Islands, 

 but whether wild birds of its species visit us or not is not known, 

 since wild and semi-wild birds are indistinguishable. The wild mute 

 swan breeds in Denmark and South Sweden, in South Russia and 

 the vaUey of the Danube, and many other locaHties, and in winter 

 visits the Mediterranean. The breeding habits of the wild and tame 

 bird are the same, but, according to Naumann, the wild bird in the 

 pairing season has a loud, trumpet-like note, resembling the cry of 

 a crane or whooper swan. 



The cygnet is sooty grey in colour, but in the BO-caUed * PoHsh 

 swan ' {Cygnus immutabilis) of Yarrell, which is now regarded by 

 most ornithologists as a variety of the mute swan the cygnets are 

 white. 



