WATER FOWL. 



WHISTLING SWAN. 



/^ F the two species of Swan indigenous to North 

 ^^^ America, the present one is the smaller and more 

 widely dispersed. It ranges in the northern portions of 

 the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from 

 the Arctic regions south to California on the west, and to 

 the Carolinas on the east coast, being very abundant in 

 winter in Currituck Sound, North Carolina. It is also 

 found in the Mississippi Valley south to the Gulf of Mex- 

 ico, and is common in Galveston Bay, Texas. It breeds 

 on both sides of the mountains in the Arctic regions ; in 

 the interior chiefly, if it stops short of the Arctic Ocean, 

 but if not, then on the coast and contiguous islands of that 

 sea. It nests in the marshes at the mouth of the Yukon, 

 and also along that great river above the Delta, and 

 on the shores about St. Michael's. On the Alaskan 

 coast by the Arctic Sea this Swan is rare, and it is not 

 found in any of the islands, nor on the Siberian shore of 

 Behring Sea, but is met with on the far western islands 

 of the Aleutian chain, though it does not breed on any of 

 them. 



This species arrives near the mouth of the Yukon the 

 latter part of April or beginning of May, coming down 

 the river from the interior, and not along the coast from 

 the south, and as they return the same way, it is supposed 

 they cross the mountams near the head waters of this 



