SONGS. 311 



I never could hear them sing 1 , rior have I seen any 

 body who has*/' 



M. Montbeillard, adopting the untenable notion, 

 that the wild and the tame swan are the same species, 

 says, " Though the swan is a silent bird, its vocal 

 organs have the same structure as in the most 

 loquacious of water-fowl ; yet the ordinary voice of 

 the tame swan is rather low than canorous, being a 

 sort of creaking, exactly like what is popularly 

 termed the swearing of a cat, and which the Romans 

 denoted by the imitative word drensare^. This 

 would seem to be the accent of menace or anger, 

 nor does love appear to have a softer. Swans almost 

 mute, like ours in a domestic state, could not be 

 those melodious birds which have been so much 

 celebrated. But the wild swan appears to have 

 better preserved its prerogatives, and with the senti- 

 ment of entire liberty, it has also its tones. The 

 bursts of its voice form a sort of modulated song, 

 yet the shrill and scarcely diversified notes of its loud 

 clarion sounds differ widely from the tender melody, 

 the sweet brilliant variety of our birds of song J." 



When swans fight, Albertus Magnus says they hiss 

 and emit a sort of bombilation not unlike the braying 

 of an ass, but not so much prolonged . Aristophanes, 

 in his comedy of the Birds, expresses the sounds by 

 Tio, Tio, Tio, Tinx. M. Grouvelle says, "Their voice, 

 in the season of pairing, more resembles a murmur 

 than any sort of song," a conclusion similar to that 

 of M. Morin, in his memoir entitled, " Why swans 

 which sung so well in ancient times now sing so 

 badly || ." M. Grouvelle adds, "There is a season 



* P. 1170. 



t Grus gruat, inque glomis cygni prope flumina 

 OVID. 



J Oiseaux, Art. Le Cygne. Hist. Anim 



|| Mem. de 1'Acad. des Inscript, 



