WHOOPER. 45 



that on tlie 2nd of February, 1850, Mr. P. Spurgeon 

 had informed him that a spur- winged goose was killed 

 near that place a few days before. The spurs on the 

 wings appear to have been specially noticed, but it 

 is quite possible that this bird after all was only an 

 Egyptian goose, that species having likewise a short 

 blunt spur near the point of each wing, wliich fully 

 accounts for the figure in Willughby's plate having the 

 term " spur- winged goose " appHed to it. 



CYGNUS FERUS, Leach. 



WHOOPEE.^ 



The "Wild Swan or Whooper is a winter visitant to our 

 coast, rarely altogether absent, but its numbers depend- 

 ing mainly upon the severity of the season. Sir Thomas 

 Browne, with his usual accuracy of observation, remarks 

 of this species, " In hard winters, elks, a kind of wild 

 swan, are seen in no small numbers ; "^ * if the winter 

 be mild, they come no fm-ther southward than Scotland ; 

 if very hard, they go lower and seek more southern 

 places, which is the cause that, sometimes, we see them 

 not before Christmas or the hardest time in winter." 

 This account agrees most accurately with our experience 

 of its habits at the present day, since, with the excep- 

 tion of one shot at Blakeney by Mr. T. W. Cremer, 

 on the 6th of November, 1871, I have no reliable record 

 of wild swans killed before December, and then only 



* This name being derived from the peculiar trumpeting note 

 of the species, I have preferred to spell it as in whooping-cough, 

 the word " hooper," as it is more commonly written, having no 

 special signification. 



