HOOPER SWAN. 



483 



Most birds moult their quills slowly, in pairs, so that they are only 

 slightly inconvenienced by the operation, and are never without quills 

 enough to enable them to fly. Swans and Geese, on the other hand, drop 

 nearly all their flight-feathers at once, and for a week or two before the 

 new feathers have grown are quite unable to fly. In some localities the 

 Hoopers have had the misfortune to breed where the natives have been 

 clever enough to surround them at this critical period of their lives, and 

 stupid enough to avail themselves of the opportunity thus afforded of 

 killing the geese that laid the golden eggs. 



The adult Hooper Swan has the entire plumage pure white. Lores 

 and basal portion of bill, extending below the nosti'ils, deep yellow, 

 remainder black ; legs and feet dull black ; irides hazel. Young in first 

 plumage are pale brownish grey ; the shoulder-feathers and those of the 

 lower back and rump are white, with narrow brown margins, and the axil- 

 laries are snow-white ; the basal portion of the bill is flesh-colour instead 

 of deep yellow. Legs and feet reddish black. After the first autumn 

 moult, when the birds are about a year old, the only sign of immaturity 

 is the pale yellow instead of deep yellow basal portion of the bill. 



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HOOPER S NEST. 



