359 



OLOR BUCCINATOR (Ridgw). 



THE TRUMPETER SWAN. 



Specific Character. — Tail usually twenty-four feathers ; bill longer than head. 

 Adult — Entire plumage pure white, the head, sometimes the neck also, or even the 

 entire under parts, tinged with rusty. Bill, naked ; lores, legs and feet, uniform 

 deep black ; iris, brown. Young — In winter the young has the bill black, with 

 the middle portion of the ridge to the length of an inch and a half, light flesh 

 colour, and a large, elongated patch of light purplish on each side ; the edge of the 

 lower mandible and tongue dull yellowish flesh colour. The eye is dark brown. 

 The feet are dull yellowish brown, tinged with olive ; the claws brownish black ; 

 the webs blackish brown. The upper parts of the head and cheeks are light red- 

 dish brown, each feather having towards its extremity a small oblong whitish 

 spot narrowly margined with dusky ; the throat, as well as the edge of the lower 

 eyelid, nearly white. The general colour of the other parts is grayish white 

 slightly tinged with yellow ; the upper part of the neck marked with spots simi- 

 lar to those on the head. 



Total length about 58.50-68.00 inches; extent about 8.00 to nearly 10.00 feet ; 

 wing 21.00-27.25 inches ; culmen 4.04-4.70 inches; tarsus 4.54 ; middle toe G.OO. 



Habitat. — Chiefly the interior of North America, breeding from Iowa to 

 Dakota northward, but principally far north. It arrives during its migration very 

 early in the spring, some say earlier than geese, and returns late in the fall. Its 

 habits are much the same as those of the preceding species, hence it is not neces- 

 sary to describe them. It is a larger bird. Audubon mentions having taken one 

 which weighed thirty-eight pounds, but the average is about eighteen or twenty 

 pounds. 



^7 (c). 



