Bewick's swan. 105 



Joshua Brookes, Esq. in JulylSSS, I purchased the sternum 

 and trachea of a swan which had been prepared by Dr. Leach, 

 and presented by that distinguished naturalist to Mr. Brookes; 

 this, also, from its anatomical structure, appeared to be dis- 

 tinct from the Hooper, and belonged to an adult bird of the 

 same species, as the bones of the young one just mentioned. 

 These materials I exhibited at the evening meeting of the 

 Zoological Club of the Linnean Society, on the 24th of 

 November 1829, and contrasting them with analogous j)arts 

 of the Hooper, pointed out by comparison the anatomical 

 distinctions between them, upon which I proposed to consider 

 the new one as a distinct species. 



Early in the following month of December I was presented 

 by J. B. Baker, Esq. with the sternum and trachea of a 

 third example of this new species, shot at Yarmouth during 

 the winter of 1827-28, the skin of which had been prepared 

 for that gentleman's collection at Hardwicke Court. During 

 the severe weather of the same month, wild swans were un- 

 usually numerous ; more than fifty were counted in one flock 

 at Wittlesey Mere. Among a considerable number which 

 had been forwarded to the London markets for sale, I was 

 fortunate enough to select five examples of this new species, 

 of different ages ; and, possessing thus a series of gradations 

 in structure, I described them in a paper read before the 

 Linnean Society, and proposed to call it Bewick's Swan, thus 

 devoting it to the memory of one whose beautiful and ani- 

 mated delineations of subjects in natural history entitle him 

 to this tribute. These swans being plentiful from the severity 

 of the winter, others were procured in different parts of the 

 country. Mr. Richard Wingate, of Newcastle, had obtain- 

 ed specimens, and observing the difference between them and 

 the Hooper, read a notice upon the subject, at the Natural 

 History Society at Newcastle, and as he was one of the oldest 

 as well as one of the warmest friends of Thomas Bewick, 



