WATER-FOWL. 215 



These qualities of great fecundity, easy sustenance, and whole- 

 some nourishment, have been found so considerable, as to induce man 

 to take these birds from a state of nature and render them domestic 

 How long they have been thus dependents upon his pleasures is not 

 known ; for from the earliest accounts, they were considered as fa- 

 miliars about him. The time must have been very remote ; for there 

 have been many changes wrought in their colours, their figures, and 

 even their internal parts, by -human cultivation. The different k nda 

 of these birds, in a wild state, are simple in their colourings : when 

 one has seen a wild goose or a wild duck, a description of its plumage 

 will, to a feather, exactly correspond with that of any other. But in 

 the tame kinds no two of any species are exactly alike. Different in 

 their size, their colours, and frequently in their general form, they 

 seem the mere creatures of Art ; and, having been so long dependent 

 upon man for support, they seem to assume forms entirely suited to 

 his pleasures or necessities. 



CHAPTER X. 



OF THE SWAN, TAME AND WILfc. 



NO bird makes a more indifferent figure upon land, or a more 

 Deautiful one in the water, than the Swan. When it ascends from 

 its favourite element, its motions are awkward, and its neck is stretch- 

 ed forward with an air of stupidity ; but when it is seen smoothly sail- 

 ing along the water, commanding a thousand graceful attitudes, moving 

 at pleasure without the smallest effort ; when it " proudly rows its 

 state," as Milton has it, " with arched neck, between its white wigs 

 mantling," there is not a more beautiful figure in all Nature. In the 

 exhibition of its form, there are no broken or harsh lines ; no con- 

 strained or catching motions ; but the roundest contours, and the 

 easiest transitions ; the eye wanders over every part with insatiable 

 pleasure, and every part takes a new grace with a new motion. 



This fine bird has long been rendered domestic ; and it is now a 

 doubt whether there be any of the tame kind in a state of nature. 

 The wild swan, though so strongly resembling this in colour and form, 

 is yet a different bird ; for it is very differently formed within. The 

 wild swan is less than the tame by almost a fourth ; for as the ono 

 weighs twenty pounds, the other only weighs sixteen pounds and three 

 quarters. The colour of the tame swan is all over white ; thai of the 

 wild bird is along the back and the tips of the wings, of an ash-coloir 

 But these am slight differences compared to what are found upon dis- 

 section. In the tame swan, the windpipe sinks down into the lungs 

 in the. ordinary manner : but in the wild, after a strange and wonde- 

 ml contortion, like what we have seen in the crane, it enters througn 

 a hole formed in the breast-bone, and beinsr reflected therein, returns 



