480 BRITISH BIRDS. 



CYGNUS MUSICUS. 

 HOOPER SWAN. 



(PLATE 57.) 



Anser cygnus ferns, Eriss. Orn. vi. p. 292 (1760). 



Anas cygnus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 194 (1766, partim). 



Anas cygnus, . ferus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 194 (1766). 



Cygnus musicus, Bechst. Nuturg. Deutschl. iii. p. 830 (1809) ; et auctorum 



plurimoruin Temminck, Bonaparte, Macgillivray, Dresser, Saunders, &c. 

 Cygnus melanorhynchus, Meyer, Taschenb. ii. p. 498 (1810). 

 Cygnus ferus (Briss.), Leach, Syst. Cat. Mamm. fyc. Brit. Mus. p. 37 (1816). 

 Cygnus islandicus, Brehm, Vog. Deutschl. p. 832 (1831). 

 Olor musicus (Bechst.), Wagl. Ms, 1832, p. 1234. 

 Cygnus xanthorhinus, Naum. Vog. Deutschl. xi. p. 478 (1842). 



The Hooper (a name which some modern ornithologists with more wit 

 than wisdom have tried to correct into Whooper) is variously known as 

 the Wild Swan, the Whistling Swan, or the Whooping Swan, but it is a 

 pity to alter a name which has been familiar to every ornithologist and 

 sportsman for at least two hundred years, from the days of Willughby 

 down to the present time *. 



The Hooper is a tolerably common winter visitor to the coasts of the 

 British Islands. It appears only to pass the Shetlands on migration, but 

 is a winter visitor to the Orkneys, where it is said by Low to have formerly 

 bred. It is a well-known winter visitor to the Hebrides and the Scotch 

 coasts generally, being most abundant in severe seasons ; whilst the same 

 remarks apply to England and Ireland. It occasionally visits the Channel 

 Islands in hard winters. 



The Hooper appears to be confined to the Old World, where it breeds 

 principally north of the Arctic circle. It is a common resident in Iceland, 

 whence it occasionally strays as far as Greenland, where it has been exter- 

 minated by the natives ; it is also now only seen in the Faroes on migra- 

 tion, but still breeds throughout Arctic Europe, wandering southwards in 

 winter to both shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, and occasion- 

 ally appearing on many inland lakes and rivers on migration. In Arctic 

 Asia its place is partly taken by a smaller ally, Bewick's Swan. Mid- 



* The derivations of the words " Hooper " and " Hoopoe " are, like that of the word 

 " hooping-cough," onomatopcetic. The French Huppe is derived from the Greek e7ro\^, 

 through the Latin upupa a fact which the revolutionary ornithological noinenclators, who 

 pride themselves upon being les plus huppcs, may do well to ponder. 



