AQUATIC FOWL,. 



135 



The cygnets are white, a point in which it differs from every other 

 species of white swan. In the adult bird the beak is reddish 

 orange ; the lateral margins, the nail, the nostrils, and the base 

 of the upper mandible are black. There is a small tubercle, which 

 never acquires the size of that ornamenting the head of the tame 

 swan. Legs, toes, and intervening membranes, slate gray. The 

 windpipe is simple. This bird, a native of the highest northern 

 regions, and the Baltic, is called by dealers, the Polish swan, and 

 occasionally visits our island. It is easily reconciled to captivity, 

 breeding as freely as the common tame swan. The female of a 

 pair of those swans, at Lord Derby's seat, at Knowsley, having 

 died, the male paired with the female of the tame species, and a 

 brood was the result ; but the hybrids, though old enough, neither 

 paired amongst themselves, nor with any of the tame swans on 

 the same water. The late Rev. Mr. Walker, of Kaheny, county 

 Dublin, bred them on his lake as readily as the common species. 





TliJd BLACK SWAN 



Is a native of Australia, where it abounds on the rivers and lakes, 

 and in various islands along the coast, and is usually seen in flocks, 

 which are shy and wary. Its first introduction into Europe has 

 been noticed in 1726, two living specimens having been brought 



