THE SWAN. 



PLATE XXXVIII. THE SWAN. 



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

 more beautiful one in the water, than the Swan* When it 

 ascends from its favorite 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, com- 

 manding 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 wings 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 constrained or catching 

 motions ; but the roundest contours, and the easiest transi- 

 tions; 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 re- 

 sembling this in color 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 one weighs 

 twenty pounds, the other only weighs sixteen pounds and 

 three quarters. The color of the tame Swan is all over 

 white ; that of the wild bird is, along the back and the tips 

 of the wings, of an ash-color. But these are slight differ- 

 ences, compared to what are found upon dissection. In 

 the tame Swan, the windpipe sinks down into the lungs in 

 the ordinary manner ; but in the wild, after a strange and 

 wonderful contortion, like what we have seen in the crane, 

 it enters through a hole formed in the breast-bone ; and 



