THE POLISH SWAN. 449 



Jn conclusion : At battues in England, we pride ourselves, 

 and with some justice, on the houquet, or, rush of phea- 

 sants ; hut beautiful a sight as it is to see a hundred or 

 two of these splendid birds on the wing at once, surely a 

 thousand or twelve hundred congregated swans should carry 

 away the palm. 



The so-called Polish Swan (C. immutabilis, Yarr.) has not 

 hitherto found a place in the Scandinavian or Danish fauna. 

 Swedish naturalists seem somewhat chary of giving an 

 opinion about it ; but the learned in Germany * are by no 

 means satisfied as to its being a new species ; and they 

 therefore call it a variety of the mute swan. They imagine 

 Yarrell may be mistaken as to the young being, as he 

 assumes, white the fact, on which he appears chiefly to rely 

 for the establishment of his theory and seemingly have 

 their suspicions, that those examined by him may, after all, 

 have been adults, and not young birds. 



And German naturalists are not alone in conceiving that 

 Yarrell has made a mistake in this matter. Amongst others, 

 Mr. Richard Dann, who has had more opportunity than most 

 men of studying to advantage the swan and its habits, in a 

 letter now lying before me, expresses himself as follows : 



" I consider the Cygnus Olor of Swedish naturalists to be 

 identical with ours in England. I myself have had two of 

 those birds in my possession that had been captured when 

 moulting, at the great hunts in Scania. They were evidently 

 young birds, but had only three or four grey feathers in the 

 back. The knob on the beak was scarcely developed, but 

 grew considerably larger, and began to get black before I 



* " Die Wirbelthiere Europas" von Kayserling und Blasius, 1840, p. kxxii., 

 genus 134. 



VOL. IT. G G 



