POLISH SWAN. 113 



posed to have escaped from Holkham Park, as about 

 the same number were said, near that time, to have 

 been missed from the lake, and, though I cannot vouch 

 for the correctness of the rumour,* it is by no means im- 

 probable, that Lord Leicester may have possessed, even 

 without being aware of it, a pair or two of Polish 

 swans, as the Zoological and Ornithological Societies, 

 in London, and the late Lord Derby, at Knowsley, had 

 specimens supplied through the London dealers; and 

 a pair of very large swans, which agree in all essential 

 points with the reputed characteristics of the Polish 

 swan, have been exhibited, under that name, at the 

 Regent's Park Zoological Gardens, since the year 1871. 



In the great swan year of 1855, two adult specimens 

 were shot on Horsey Mere, on the 2nd of March, as 

 recorded in the "Zoologist" (p. 4661). One of these 

 remains in Mr. Rising's collection, and the other, sent 

 to his son-in-law, in London, Mr. G. S. Frederick, was 

 by him submitted to Yarrell, who identified it at once 

 as Cygnus immutahilis. They were described as *' quite 

 alone and difficult to approach." Another example, as 

 Mr. Prising informs me, was shot by his eldest son at 

 Hickling, about the year 1858, and was found to corre- 

 spond exactly with his preserved specimen. 



On the authority of Mr. M. C. Cooke a single example 

 is recorded in Morris's " British Birds " to have been 

 killed in the marshes, at Horning, in this comity, on the 

 20th of January, 1874, which specimen, according to 

 the entry in the late Mr. G. R. Gray's " Catalogue of 

 British Birds" (1863), should be in the British Museum, 

 but as I learn from Mr. R. B. Sharpe, who now holds 

 the same post in the national museum, so long occupied 



* Mr. Southwell's notes at tlie time supply the fact that two 

 out of the three birds were killed on a pond, the other on a small 

 drain or water-course. 

 Q 



