154 RARE VISITANTS. 
Four were shot on the Medway, where a flock of thirty and 
several smaller flocks were seen: Yarrell, op. cit. 
One, Cambridgeshire: in the Wisbeach Museum. 
Three out of a flock of thirteen, Ingoldisthorpe, Norfolk, Dec. 
1851: Southwell, Naturalist, 1852, p. 170. 
One on the Thames near Clewer Mill, winter 1854-55: 
Clark Kennedy, Birds of Berks and Bucks, p. 204. 
Two, Horsey Mere, 2nd March, 1855: Fredericks, Zoologist, 
1855, p. 4661. 
One, Hartlepool: J. H. Gurney, jun., MS. 
One in Leadenhall Market, Feb. 1861: Harting, Birds of 
Middlesex, p. 223. 
Two, Leadenhall Market, 3rd May, 1871: J. H. Gurney, MS. 
Obs. The claim of this bird to rank as a species is 
not universally admitted by ornithologists. But the 
fact of the cygnets being white from the time they 
leave the egg, and the colour of the legs of young and 
old being grey instead of black, favour the view that 
it is specifically distinct from Cygnus olor. 
AMERICAN SWAN. Cygnus americanus, Sharpless*. 
Hab. North America. 
In February 1841, Macgillivray obtained from a 
poulterer in Edinburgh a specimen of this Swan, shot 
in the south of Scotland, which he at first mistook 
for Bewick’s Swan; but on dissecting it he found dif- 
ferences indicative of a distinct species; and on com- 
paring its sternum, windpipe, and digestive organs 
* Cygnus americanus, Sharpless, Doughty’s Cab. Nat. Hist. 1. 
p. 185, pl. xvi. (1830). Cygnus bewickit, Swainson, Faun. Bor.- 
Amer. ii. p. 224 (18381). 
