410 HISTORY OF 



ther 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 opi- 

 nion of antiquity, that the swan was a most melo- 

 dious 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 Aca- 

 demy of Belles Lettres. From these accounts it 

 appears, that while Plato, Aristotle, and Diodo- 

 rus Siculus, believed the vocality of the swan, 

 Pliny and Virgil seem to doubt that received 

 opinion. In this equipoise of authority, Aldro- 

 vandus seems to have determined in favour of 

 the Greek philosophers ; and the form of the 

 windpipe in the wild swan, so much resembling 

 a musical instrument, inclined his belief still more 

 strongly. In aid of this also came the testimony 

 of Pendasius, who affirmed, that he had often 

 heard swans sweetly singing in the lake of Man- 

 tua, as he was rowed up and down in a boat ; 

 as also of Olaus Wormius, who professed that 

 many of his friends and scholars had heard them 

 singing. " There was," says he, " in my family, 

 a very honest young man, John Rostorph, a stu- 

 dent in divinity, and a Norwegian by nation. 

 This man did, upon his credit, and with the in- 

 terposition of an oath, solemnly affirm, that once 

 in the territory of Dronten, as he was standing 

 on the sea-shore early in the morning, he heard 



