280 NATATORE8. CYGNUS. S\VAX. 



every reason to suppose has visited this country for many 

 years, although constantly confounded with the present spe- 

 cies, to which, in outward appearance, it bears a very close 

 resemblance, being only rather inferior in size. The geo- 

 graphical distribution of these birds embraces the northern 

 regions of Europe, Asia, and America, in all of which they 

 are abundantly found. In summer they retreat to very high 

 latitudes to breed and rear their young, and those inhabiting 

 our parallel of latitude are then to be met with scattered over 

 Norway, Iceland, Lapland, Spitzbergen, &c. In Asia they 

 are numerous in Kamschatka, Northern Siberia, and other 

 polar districts of that continent, and they are described as 

 abounding on the unfrequented borders of the upper lakes of 

 North America; and are mentioned in Captain FRANKLIN'S 

 Journal as amongst the first birds of passage that come from 

 the south upon the breaking up of the long polar winter. In 

 these dreary regions, where man finds but a precarious sub- 

 sistence by fishing and the chase, the return of the Swan is 

 anxiously looked for, on account of the various benefits it 

 confers ; its flesh and eggs affording wholesome and invigo- 

 rating food, and its skin, when dressed with the down, sup- 

 plying V variety of clothing, of remarkable softness and 

 warmth. A^few pairs, it is said, occasionally remain upon 

 some of the outer Orkney Islands, and there breed upon the 

 margins of the r fresh water lochs ; but these can only be con- 

 sidered as stragglers, the great body retiring (as I have 

 above remarked) to higher latitudes for that purpose. The 

 Nest ' &c ' nest of the Wild Swan is formed of the withered parts of 

 reeds, rushes, and other aquatic herbage, to a considerable 

 thickness * ; and the eggs, from five to seven in number, are 

 of a pale oil-green or greenish-white colour. In six weeks 

 the young are excluded, but it is upwards of three months 

 before they become fully fledged. In Iceland, to the inha- 



* Captain LYON, in his Private Journal, during the voyage of discovery 

 under Captain PARRY, mentions the nest of a Swan found upon Winter 

 Island. He describes it as formed of small pieces of peat, in size five feet 

 ten inches by four feet ten inches, and two feet in height. 



