278 BULLETIN 130, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



(Merced County), central Nevada (Washoe Lake), southern Arizona 

 (Fort Whipple), and eastern Texas (Nueces County). In South 

 America from central Argentina (near Buenos Aires and in Ajo 

 district), northwards to northern Argentina (Tucuman Fort, in 

 Donovan), central Paraguay (Asuncion), and southern Brazil. Oc- 

 curs in northern South America (Colombia, Venezuela, and British 

 Guiana) ; it probably breeds in these localities and casually on the 

 island of Trinidad. 



Winter range. — Includes the breeding range and extends south- 

 wards in Mexico to Guerrero and Chiapas and northwards in Cali- 

 fornia to the Sacramento Valley (Marysville) and Marin County 

 (Inverness). 



Migrations. — Migratory movements are not well marked, but 

 occur mainly in April and October. 



Casual records. — Has wandered east to North Carolina (Currituck 

 Sound, July, 1886) and Missouri (New Albany, fall, 1890) and north 

 to British Columbia (Alberni, Vancouver Island, September 29, 

 1905. 



Egg dates. — California : Twenty -three records, April 28 to July 

 13; twelve records, June 7 to 25. Texas: Nine records. May 16 to 

 September 10 ; four records, June 16 to July 12. 



CYGNUS CYGNUS (Linnaeus) 



WHOOPING SWAN 



HABITS 



The status of this fine swan as an American bird has rested mainly 

 on its former occurrence as a breeding bird of southern Greenland, 

 of which Andreas T. Hagerup (1891) says: "Formerly nested in 

 South Greenland, but is now only a rare visitor." It is said to have 

 been exterminated in Greenland by the natives, who pursued and 

 killed the young birds and the adults, when molting and unable to 

 fly. Probably what few stragglers now occur there are wanderers 

 from Iceland, where it is known to breed regularly. 



The whooping swan is a Palearctic bird of wide distribution 

 across the northern portions of Europe and Asia, breeding mainly 

 north of the Arctic Circle. 



Nesting. — John Cordeaux (1898) writes: 



" It is the earliest of the Arctic breeding birds to move toward its nesting 

 quarters, and its loud trumpet calls are the first notice to the dwellers in high 

 latitudes that the long dreary winter is nearing its end. Swans arrive at their 

 nesting quarters as early as the end of March. The nest is a round mass of 

 water plants and moss, fragments of turf and peat, of considerable elevation 

 and often visible at a long distance. It is placed in some vast wilderness of 

 bog or marsh, and sometimes on a small island in a lake. The eggs, from 3 to 



