BEWICK-S SWAN. 93 



Family ANA TW&. 



BEWICK'S SWAN. 



Cygnus beivicki, YARRELL. 



THIS beautiful little Swan was first described by the Russian traveller, Pallas, 

 imder the name of Cygnus minor. He considered it, however, a small race 

 of the Whooper. 



Bewick's Swan may readily be distinguished by its small size compared with 

 the Whooper it is a mere Goose. The dimensions over all vary from forty-six to 

 fifty inches in the one, and sixty and over in the other. The lemon yellow at 

 the base of the bill does not extend below the nostrils, the rest black. The 

 plumage is brilliant white, like crystallised snow ; adults have a little rust colour 

 on the forehead and top of the head. The weight varies from nine-and-a-half to 

 fourteen Ibs., against twenty to twenty-two Ibs. in the Whooper. Although an 

 undoubted visitor to the British Isles before 1829, it was always looked upon by 

 ornithologists as a small race of Cygnus musicus. 



Like the Bernacle- Goose, this little Swan is much more abundant on the west 

 coast of Scotland, and in Ireland, than in other places in the British Islands. A 

 remarkable western distribution in the winter, as from all we know it does not 

 appear to breed anywhere westward of Archangel, and certainly not in Greenland 

 and Iceland. Dr. Von Heuglin found it nesting in Novaya Zemlya. Mr. H. T. 

 Pearson, and Colonel Feilden, on July 26th, saw four Swans near Saxon River, 

 on the west coast of the island, supposed to belong to this species. Bewick's 

 Swan, both old and cygnets, were obtained by Mr. Pearson and his part)' on 

 Kolguev, in the same year, on the Gobista River ; from the number of Swan 

 mounds seen by them it must, at one time, have been much more plentiful. It 

 was the only Swan found, in 1894, by Mr. A. Trevor- Battye on this island. It 

 nests on the mainland east of Archangel, and probably across the whole of Arctic 

 Asia to Bering's Straits. Dr. Alex. Von Bunge found it in summer on Sagastyr 

 Island, at the mouth of the Lena, along with Cygnus musicus and C. olor. Mr. H. 

 L. Popham, who visited the Yenisei in 1895, says all the Swans, as far as he 

 could ascertain, were of this species (" The Ibis," 1897, p. 100). In winter 

 Bewick's is common in Japan and China. 



C. beivicki occurs regularly on migration at Astrakhan, but not so commonly as 

 C. musicus. It winters in the southern Caspian. It is a rare winter visitor to 



VOL IV. 



