168 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



siveness, but more surely by preempting all feeding grounds and 

 nesting places. 



To mention a specific location, on Lake Ellesmere there are 

 hundreds of swans nesting tliroiighout the year. Every week 

 many dozen eggs are brought into Christchurch, where they are 

 supplanting the use of hens' eggs in bakeries and in private fam- 

 ilies. The birds are comparatively tame, notwithstanding the fact 

 that all protection has been removed from them, and numbers 

 are constantlv shot wantonly, even while sitting upon their eggs. 



As is the case with all other swans, these birds have been intro- 

 duced in a semidomesticated condition into all civilized portions 

 of the world, and they very often breed in capitivity, even when 

 confined in a comparatively small enclosure. One pair is on rec- 



HEAD OF BLACK-NECKED SWAX. 



ord as having nested sixteen times in seven years, laying in all 

 no less than one hundred and eleven eggs. 



On account of the length and slenderness of the neck, and the 

 majestic and easy grace with which the Black Swan comports 

 itself, it may be accounted one of the most graceful birds in the 

 world, and one well worthy of the utmost protection in its native 

 home. 



THE BLACK-NECKED SWAN. 



Cygiiits inelanoeoryphiis (Mo!.). 



This bird is another aberrant form of swan — aberrant, how- 

 ever, only in the matter of color, for structurally it differs but 

 little from the typical white arctic species. It is pure white, 



