154 RARE VISITANTS. 



Four were shot on the Medway, where a flock of thirty and 



several smaller flocks were seen : Yarrell, op. cit. 

 One, Cambridgeshire : in the Wisbeach Museum. 

 Three out of a flock of thirteen, Ingoldisthorpe, Norfolk, Dec. 



1851 : Southwell, Naturalist, 1852, p. 170. 

 One on the Thames near Clewer Mill, winter 185455 : 



Clark Kennedy, Birds of Berks and Bucks, p. 204. 

 Two, Horsey Mere, 2nd March, 1855 : Fredericks, Zoologist, 



1855, p. 4661. 



One, Hartlepool : J. H. Gurney, jun., MS. 

 One in Leadenhall Market, Feb. 1861 : Harting, Birds of 



Middlesex, p. 223. 

 Two, Leadenhall Market, 3rd May, 1871 : J. H. Gurney, MS. 



Obs. The claim of this bird to rank as a species is 

 not universally admitted by ornithologists. But the 

 fact of the cygnets being white from the time they 

 leave the egg, and the colour of the legs of young and 

 old being grey instead of black, favour the view that 

 it is specifically distinct from Cygnus olor. 



AMEBICAN SWAN. Cygnus americanus, Sharpless*. 



Hob. North America. 



In February 1841, Macgillivray obtained from a 

 poulterer in Edinburgh a specimen of this Swan, shot 

 in the south of Scotland, which he at first mistook 

 for Bewick's Swan ; but on dissecting it he found dif- 

 ferences indicative of a distinct species ; and on com- 

 paring its sternum, windpipe, and digestive organs 



* Cygnus americanus, Sharpless, Doughty's Cab. Nat. Hist. i. 

 p. 185, pi. xvi. (1830). Cygnus bewickii, Swainson, Faun. Bor.- 

 Amer. ii. p. 224 (1831). 



