22 INDIAN DUCKS 



(5) CYGNUS MINOR. 

 ALPHBEAKY'S SWAN. 



Cyguus minor, Eci/serUmi (f Bias. Wirbclthieir, pp. Ixxxii, 222 (1840) 



(Selenga River, Transbaikalia). 

 Cygnus bewicki jankowskii, Alphemhy, Priodai Okhata {Nalui-e and 



SiJort), Russia, September 10, 1904 (Ussuri-land) ; Jourdain, Bull. 



B.O.C. xxvii, p. 55. 

 Cygnus jankowskii, Buturlin. Ibis, 1907, p. G51 ; Stuart Baker, 



J. B. N. H. S. xxiiii, p. 457 (1915). 

 Olor bewicki minor, Ohcrlioher, Emu, viii, p. 5 (1908). 



Description.— Buturlin (in loc. cit.) writes :— 



" It is altogether larger than C. bcjricki, while the yellow of the 

 bill is somewhat more developed, but the best diagnostic character 

 is its much broader bill. Fully adult examples of C. bewicki have 

 the maximum breadth of the bill 28 to 30'5 mm., exceptionally 

 reaching to 31 mm., but then this specimen has the bill from the 

 eye 122 mm. long." 



The breadth of the bill is a good character generally, but as a maitfcer of 

 fact, the type of bewicki in the British Museum has the bill at its broadest 

 part no less than 32 mm. wide, and another bird obtained by Yarrell at the 

 same time has it 31'7 mm. As will be seen, however, from Gronvold's 

 excellent plate, the shape of the bill is different from that of beu:icki, although 

 the distribution of colour is the same. The upper margin of the bill in 

 minor is almost as straight as it is in Cijonus cygnus, and does not show a 

 concave line as in bcivicki ; the bill is also much longer in proportion to the 

 depth and the serrations in the closed bill show for three or four of their 

 number. The yellow also appears to be considerably darker and more 

 orange in tint than it is in either cygnus or bcivicki. In the only specimens 

 I have seen it is also noticeable that the black runs as a narrow lino round 

 the forehead. 



Alph6raky treats this Swan as a subspecies of Bewick's Swan, but I 

 see no reason why we should not give it full rank as a species. Buturlin 

 obtained a large series and in the Lena Delta the two birds were actually 

 breeding in the same area, yet here they acquire not an intermediate form 

 as we should expect, but are all individually referable to either Alpheraky's 

 or Bewick's Swans. Nor does Buturlin say anything to show that he 

 found individuals of the two forms pairing together. 



