WATER FOWL. 409 



bird is, along the back and the tips of the wings, 

 of an ash-colour. But these are slight differences 

 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 

 being reflected therein, returns by the same aper- 

 ture ; and being contracted into a narrow com- 

 pass by a broad and bony cartilage, it is divided 

 into two branches, which, before they enter the 

 lungs, are dilated, and as it were swoln 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 of long 

 continued captivity and domestication to produce 

 this strange variety between birds otherwise the 

 same, I will not take upon me to determine ; but 

 certain it is, that our tame swan is no where to 

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



As it is not easy to account for this difference 

 of conformation, so it -is still more difficult to 

 reconcile the accounts 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 the clangour of it ; for 

 such is the harshness of its voice, that the bird 

 from thence has been called the Hooper. In nei- 



