298 THE SWAN. 



being reflected therein, returns by the same aperture ; and 

 being contracted into a narrow compass by a broad and 

 bony cartilage, it is divided into two branches, which, be- 

 fore they enter the lungs, are dilated, and, as it were, 

 swollen out into two cavities. 



Such is the extraordinary difference between these two 

 animals, which externally seem to be of one species. 

 Whether it is in the power oflong-continued captivity and 

 domestication to produce this strange variety, between 

 birds otherwise the same, I will not take upon me to deter- 

 mine. But certain it is, that our tame Swan is nowhere to 

 be found, at least in Europe, in a state of nature. 



As it is not easy to account for this difference of con- 

 formation, so it is still more difficult to reconcile the ac- 

 counts of the ancients with the experience of the moderns, 

 concerning the vocal powers of this bird. The tame Swan 

 is one of the most silent of all birds ; and the wild one has 

 a note extremely loud and disagreeable. It is probable, 

 the convolutions of the windpipe may contribute to increase 



r r j 



the clangor of it ; for such is the harshness of its voice, 

 that the bird from thence has been called the hooper. In 

 neither is there the smallest degree of melody ; nor have 

 they, for above this century, been said to give specimens 

 of the smallest musical abilities; yet, notwithstanding this, 

 it was the general opinion of antiquity, that the Swan was 

 a most melodious bird ; and that even to its death, its voice 







went on improving. It would show no learning to produce 

 what they have said upon the music of the Swan ; it has 

 already been collected by Aldrovandus ; and still more 

 professedly by the Abbe Gedoyn, in the Transactions of 

 the Academy of the Belles Lettres. From these accounts 

 it appears, that, while Plato, Aristotle, and Diodorus Sicu- 

 lus, believed the vocality of the Swan, Pliny and Virgil 

 seem to doubt that received opinion. In this equipoise of 

 authority Aldrovandus seems to have determined in favor ( 

 of the Greek philosophers; and the form of the windpipe 





