224 



HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



CHAP. X. 



OF THE SWAN, TAME AND WILD. 1 



No bird makes a more indifferent figure 

 upon land, or a more beautiful one in the 



1 The extensive family of Swimming Birds to which 

 these noble ornaments of our rivers and lakes belong, 

 are at once characterized by their straight broad bills, 

 clothed with a continuation of the common epidermis 

 instead of the usual horny covering, and armed at the 

 edges with a regular series of laminated teeth. Their 

 wings are of moderate length; their legs short; and 

 their feet divided into four toes, the three anterior 

 united throughout by a palmated expansion, and the 

 posterior perfectly distinct from the rest. They are for 

 the most part inhabitants of fresh water rather than of 

 the sea ; and subsist more upon vegetable than animal 

 substances. 



In the Linnean system of classification the great 

 majority of these birds were referred to a single genus, 

 under the generic name of Anas, derived originally from 

 the common duck, and extended from it to the whole of 

 its tribe. But the vast number of species thus brought 

 together, and the consequent difficulty of determining 

 any unknown bird that might be referable to the group, 

 long since suggested the expediency of its dismember- 

 ment, and the formation of smaller and more manage- 

 able subdivisions. Many naturalists, from Ray down 

 to the present time, have attempted, with more or less 

 success, to simplify by these means the study of the 

 most interesting family among our water-fowl; but 

 several of the divisions that have been established 

 among them rest upon such apparently trivial charac- 

 ters, that we are by no means prepared to adopt them 

 j u their fullest extent. There are some, however, 

 such as the swans, the geese, and the ducks, so strik- 

 ingly distinguished, as to have been separated, in 

 popular nomenclature, from the earliest times ; and this 

 separation being confirmed by tangible characters, we 

 cannot hesitate to consider it as founded upon just and 

 sufficient principles. 



Of the characters by which the swans are distin- 

 guished from the rest of the family, the most remarkable 

 are the extreme length of their necks; the oval shape 

 of their nostrils, which are placed about the middle of 

 their bill ; the nakedness of their cheeks ; the equal 

 breadth of their bills throughout; the great depth of 

 that organ at the base, where the vertical considerably 

 exceeds the transverse diameter; and the position of 

 their legs behind the centre of gravity. They are by 

 far the largest species of the family; and there are very 

 few birds that exceed them in magnitude. They live 

 almost constantly upon the water, preferring the larger 

 streams and open lakes; and feed chiefly upon aquatic 

 plants, the roots of which they are enabled to reach by 

 means of their long necks, for they rarely if ever plunge 

 the whole of their bodies beneath the surface. They 

 also devour frogs a.nd insects, and occasionally, it is said, 

 even fishes; but this last assertion is contradicted by 

 almost every observer who has attended particularly to 

 their habits, and seems quite at variance with the fact 

 that the fish-ponds to which they are sometimes confined 

 do not appear to suffer the smallest diminution in the 

 number of their inhabitants from the presence of these 

 inoffensive birds. We are moreover informed by Mr 

 Yarrell that he has never found in the stomachs of any 

 of the numerous individuals dissected by him the least 

 vestige of such a diet. In their habits they are as 

 peaceable as they are majestic in form, elegant in atti- 

 lude, graceful in their motions, and, in the two species 



water, than the swan. When it ascends from 

 its favourite element, its motions are awkward, 

 and its neck is stretched forward with an air 

 of stupidity; but when it is seen smoothly 

 sailing along the water, commanding a thou- 

 sand graceful attitudes, moving at pleasure 

 without the smallest effort ; " when it proudly 



that are most commonly known to us, unsullied in the 

 purity of their white and glossy plumage. 



Of these species that which is known, improperly 

 with reference to a large proportion of the individuals 

 that compose it, as the tame swan, is probably the 

 most common, being found in a state of domestication 

 throughout the greater part of the northern hemisphere. 

 In a wild state it is met with in almost every country 

 of Europe, especially towards the east, and is particu- 

 larly abundant in Siberia. Its distinguishing characters 

 are found chiefly in its bill, which is throughout of an 

 orange red, with the exception of the edges of the man- 

 dibles, the slight hook at the extremity, the nostrils, 

 and the naked spaces extending from the base towards 

 the eyes, all of which are black. A large protuberance, 

 also of a deep black, surmounts the base of the bill ; 

 the iris is brown ; and the legs black, with a tinge of 

 red. All the plumage, without exception, ia the adult 

 bird, is of the purest white. In length the full grown 

 male measures upwards of five feet, and more than 

 eight in the expanse of its wings, which reach, when 

 closed, along two-thirds of the tail. Its weight is 

 usually about twenty pounds, but it sometimes attains 

 five and twenty or even thirty; and those which in- 

 habit the southern coast of the Caspian are said to 

 reach a still more enormous size. The female is rather 

 smaller than the male ; her bill is surmounted by a 

 smaller protuberance ; and her neck is somewhat more 

 slender. When first hatched the young are of a dusky 

 gray, with lead-coloured bill and legs; in the second 

 year their plumage becomes lighter, and their bill and 

 legs assume a yellowish tinge ; in the third year they 

 put on the adult plumage and colouring of the naked 

 parts. 



The wild birds of this species, like most of the water, 

 fowl, are migratory in their habits. In the temperate 

 regions of Europe they begin to absent themselves in 

 October, and return towards the end of March to the 

 quarters which they occupied in the preceding year. 

 But when the winter is not particularly severe, they 

 frequently remain through it, seeking for shelter among 

 the dams and sluices of the rivers, and returning to 

 their former quarters at the breaking of the frost. To 

 protect the tame birds from the severity of the season, 

 it is usual to drive them into the same houses with the 

 ducks and geese; but in such strict confinement they 

 entirely lose their spirits, become melancholy and dis- 

 eased, and are constantly making attempts to escape. 

 It is much better, whenever it is possible, both with 

 them and with the commoner species of water-fowl, to 

 leave them at liberty upon a piece of water, which, if 

 their number is at all considerable, they will always 

 keep open by their continual motion, without any risk 

 of freezing their feet. Swans kept in this manner dur- 

 ng the winter are generally in much better condition 

 at the return of spring than those which have been con. 

 fined to the house. 



The females choose for their nesting-place the least 

 equented situations on the banks of the rivers or lakes 

 which they inhabit, and build their nests in the rudest 

 manner of twigs and reeds, lined with a comfortable 

 coating of their breast feathers. They lay six or eight 

 grayish eggs, and sit for five weeks, generally in Apri) 

 and May. As soon as the young birds are hatched, 

 hey are carried by both parents to the water, and for 



