Bewick's swan. 53 



in our semi-domesticated species, is noticeable more 

 or less in most specimens, and in a very fine bird in 

 the possession of Mr. ¥. Frere, of Yarmouth, shot on 

 Breydon in February, 1865, this ferruginous or orange 

 red upon the tips of the feathers extends likewise to 

 the neck, and is more vivid than in any example I 

 have seen. To this peculiarity of plumage, however, 

 whether to be considered as a natural effect, dependent 

 on age or sex, or, as believed by some naturalists, a 

 merely artificial stain, I shall have occasion to refer, 

 more at length, in my account of the mute swan. 



CYGNUS BEWICKI, Yarrell. 



BEWICK'S SWAN. 



When the late Mr. Yarrell, in a paper read before 

 the Linnean Society, in January, 1830,'^ pointed out 

 the specific distinctions between this smaller wild swan 

 and the common whooper, he included amongst his 

 specimens and anatomical preparations the sternum 

 and trachea of one shot at Yarmouth in the winter of 

 1827-8, the skin of which was preserved in the collec- 

 tion of Mr. J. B. Baker, of Hardwicke Court. Further 

 investigation and comparison, at the time, discovered 

 several examples in private collections, and amongst 

 others an adult bird in the possession of the late Mr. 

 Lombe, of Melton,t who in some MS. notes in his copy 

 of Montagu's Dictionary, thus identifies it with this 



* " On a new species of wild swan taken in England and 

 hitherto confounded with the whooper." — " Linnean Transactions," 

 vol. xvi., p. 445. 



f This fine collection, as has been elsewhere stated, is now at 

 Wymondham in the possession of Mrs. E. P. Clarke. 



