BEWICK'S SWAN. 195 



sternum and trachea of a Swan which had been prepared 

 by Dr. Leach, and presented by that distinguished na- 

 turalist to Mr. Brookes ; this, also, from its anatomical 

 structure, appeared to be distinct from the Hooper, and 

 belonged to an adult bird of the same species, as the bones 

 of the young one just mentioned. These materials I 

 exhibited at the evening meeting of the Zoological Club of 

 the Linn can Society, on the 24th of November 1829, and 

 contrasting them with analogous parts of the Hooper, 

 pointed out by comparison the anatomical distinctions 

 between them, upon which I proposed to consider the new 

 one as a distinct species. 



Early in the following month of December I was pre- 

 sented by J. B. Baker, Esq. with the sternum and trachea 

 of a third example of this new species, shot at Yarmouth 

 during the winter of 1827-28, the skin of which had been 

 prepared for that gentleman's collection at Hardwicke 

 Court. During the severe weather of the same month, 

 Wild Swans were unusually numerous ; more than fifty 

 were counted in one flock at Wittlesey Mere. Among a 

 considerable number which had been forwarded to the 

 London markets for sale, I was fortunate enough to select 

 five examples of this new species, of different ages ; and, 

 possessing thus a series of gradations in structure, I de- 

 scribed them in a paper read before the Linnean Society, 

 and proposed to call it Bewick's Swan, thus devoting it to 

 the memory of one whose beautiful and animated delinea- 

 tions of subjects in natural history entitle him to this 

 tribute. These Swans being plentiful from the severity of 

 the winter, others were procured in different parts of the 

 country. Mr. Richard Wingate, of Newcastle, had ob- 

 tained specimens, and observing the difference between 

 them and the Hooper, read a notice upon the subject, at 

 the Natural History Society at Newcastle, and as he was 



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