56 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



in the season, saw but one Bewick's swan amongst many 

 whoopers for sale on the 24th of February. 



This species, which from its smaller size being one 

 third less than the whooper at the same age is more 

 generally known to continental authors as Cygnus minor, 

 exhibits also the following external differences, as given 

 by Yarrell in the paper before referred to. " The head 

 is shorter and the elevation of the cranium greater in 

 proportion to the size of the head, the beak narrow at 

 the middle and dilated towards the point. The wings 

 when closed do not extend quite so far beyond the 

 roots of the tail feathers ; the tail itself is somewhat 

 cuneiform, and the toes appear shorter in proportion to 

 the length of the tarsi." To these I may add, from the 

 examination of several specimens, both adult and imma- 

 ture, since the year 1855, that the proportion of yellow 

 to black in the bill of the adult Bewick's swan is much 

 less than in the whooper, never extending so far along 

 the sides of the upper mandible, but rounding off behind 

 the nostrils. The colour itself in some freshly killed 

 birds is decidedly more of a lemon-yellow than orange. 

 The membrane beneath the lower mandible also, which 

 in the whooper is yellow, is black in the adult Bewick's 

 swan and in the young light grey, a distinction ap- 

 parently overlooked by Yarrell. The distribution of 

 black and yellow on the upper mandible varies, however, 

 in different specimens, and I am somewhat inclined 

 to believe that the broad band of black upon the ridge 

 of the bill, extends nearer, by age, to the forehead, 

 as in one or two examples in pure white plumage, I 

 have seen traces of the black extending quite up to the 

 base of the bill, the usual yellow band across the upper 

 part showing faint indications of black mixed with the 

 yellow colour.* This is not the case with birds showing 



* Thompson, in his "Birds of Ireland" (vol. iii., p. 15), states 

 that a specimen of Bewick's swan, which had been only slightly 



