470 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 
The nest, which is large and made of reeds and 
rushes,* is usually placed in a moist situation—so 
moist that man cannot obtain a footing.t 
In this bird the beak, by which it is most easily 
distinguished from Bewick’s Swan, is black towards 
the point and yellow at the base, the yellow running 
further down the side of the beak than on the top, 
extending on the sides beyond the nostrils; the lore, 
or space between the beak and the eye, is bare of 
feathers and yellow; the irides are dark; the whole 
of the plumage is white; the legs, toes and webs 
black. The young birds in the middle of October 
have the beak black at the end; a reddish orange 
band across the nostrils; the base and lore pale 
greenish white; the general colour of the plumage 
pale greyish brown; a few of the smaller wing- 
coverts white, mixed with others of a pale buffy 
brown. 
The egg is of a uniform pale brownish white. 
Bewicr’s Swan, Cygnus Bewicku. This bird, 
which, like the last species, has occasionally been 
taken in this county, but only in hard winters, 
much resembles that bird, both in plumage and 
habits: it may, however, be distinguished by its 
smaller size and by the beak, the yellow part of 
which does not occupy so much space or extend so 
* Yarrell, vol. iii., p. 194. 
+ Meyer’s ‘ British Birds,’ vol. vi., p. 63. 
