41 6 Bewick's swan. 



it is only an irregular visitor to Norway, though rather more frequent 

 in P'inland. Its summer habitat is decidedly more northerly and less 

 westerly than that of the Whooper, no nesting-places being known 

 to the south of about 68^, or to the west of the White Sea, and it 

 was only near the mouth of the Petchora that Messrs. Harvie-Brown 

 and Seebohm obtained the first identified eggs on record. In 1894 

 Mr. Trevor-Battye found it nesting a little further west, namely on 

 Kolguev Island, where afterwards Mr. H. J. Pearson's party were the 

 first to obtain the young in down ; and it occurs in Novaya Zemlya 

 and some other localities in the Arctic Sea. On the Yenesei the 

 late Mr. Seebohm, as well as Mr. H. L. Popham, recognized no other 

 Swan to the north of the Arctic circle ; and it ranges eastward to 

 beyond the Lena, but has not been obtained in Kamchatka. In 

 the cold season it visits Japan and China ; while in Europe it has 

 occasionally been found as far south as the Mediterranean. 



The nest resembles that of the Whooper, but the eggs are smaller 

 than those of that bird, and have rather less gloss : measurements 

 3'9 by 2 '6 in. The note sounds like fong or boo?ig quickly uttered, 

 and is very different from that of the larger species. The food 

 consists chiefly of aquatic plants. 



The adult is pure white ; the irides dark ; legs, toes and webs 

 black ; the distribution of black and orange-yellow on the beak is 

 shown in the illustration. The young bird is greyish-brown, but the 

 white plumage is acquired in the second winter, when the irides are 

 yellow. Length from 46-50 in. (bill 3"5) ; wing about 21 in. ; 

 weight 13 lbs. 



An immature Swan shot near Aldeburgh in October 1866 and 

 now in the Ipswich Museum, is, in the opinion of Professor Newton, 

 an example of the American Trumpeter-Swan, C. buccinator : a larger 

 species than the Whooper, with a black bill. It has long been 

 naturalized in this country and has repeatedly hatched its young in 

 captivity. Another North-American species which has been stated — 

 on weak evidence — to have been found at long intervals in the shops 

 of Edinburgh poulterers, is C. columbiamis : a bird smaller than the 

 Whooper, though larger than Bewick's Swan, and resembling the 

 latter in having patches of small size at the base of the bill, though 

 these are of a deep orange-colour. In the adults of our Whooper 

 and the American Trumpeter-Swan the loop of the trachea between 

 the walls of the keel takes a vertical direction, whereas in Bewick's 

 Swan and in C. cohiinbicuius the bend is horizontal ; but in immature 

 birds these distinctions are less marked and more variable. 



