31UTE SWAN. 



121 



colour ; the nostrils and the basal marginal line black. The 

 same birds, at the end of October, have the beak of a light 

 slate grey, tinged with green ; the irides dark ; head, neck, 

 and all the upper surface of the body, nearly uniform sooty 

 greyish-brown ; the under surface also uniform, but of a 

 lighter shade of greyish-brown. Young birds at the end of 

 October nearly as large as the old birds. After the second 

 autumn moult but little of the grey plumage remains. When 

 two years old they are quite white, and breed in their third 

 year. 



The figure here inserted represents the windpipe and 

 breast-bone of the Mute Swan. The keel is single, unpro- 

 vided with any cavity ; the windpipe descends between the 

 branches of the forked bone, and curving in the form of part 

 of a circle, passes upwards and backwards to the bone of 

 divarication, and from thence by short tubes to the lungs. 



One subject having reference to this species of Swan ap- 

 pears to be so closely connected with its history, that I am 

 induced to take a short notice of it, and the more so because 

 it has hitherto been passed over in other histories of the 

 birds of this country. I allude to the privileges granted 

 to individuals or companies to keep and preserve Swans on 

 different streams ; and the many various swan marks adopted, 



