852 



HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. 



WILD SWAN. 



but both have now disappeared from our feasts, and 

 are retained only for their beauty, their flesh at best 

 being dry and hard when the birds are full-grown ; yet 

 cygnets are still occasionally used, but certainly more 

 for show than taste, as they are not at all comparable 

 to a good barn-yard chicken. The swan is a long- 

 lived bird, but it is disputed whether the traditionary 

 accounts which allot it a term of more than a century 

 be correct ; about half that period may perhaps be its 

 legitimate boundary. The Swan lives almost entirely 

 upon the water, and feeds chiefly upon aquatic 

 plants, yet varying its vegetable diet with frogs and 

 insects. 



The Trumpeter Swan (Cygnus buccinator), is more 

 common. It is from this kind that the bulk of the 

 swan-skins imported by the Hudson Bay Company are 

 obtained. Douglas mentions a third kind equal in 



