THE SWAN. 



225 



rows in state," as Milton has it, ' with arched 

 neck, between its white wings mantling," 

 there is not a more beautiful figure in all 

 nature. In the exhibition of its form, there 



are no broken or harsh lines, no constrained 

 or catching motions ; but the roundest con- 

 tours, and the easiest transitions; the eye 

 wanders over every part with insatiable plea- 



two or three weeks afterwards are borne upon their 

 backs, or placed for shelter and warmth beneath their 

 wings. The attentions of the parent birds are con- 

 tinued until the next pairing season, when the old males 

 drive the young from their society, and compel them to 

 shift for themselves. To prevent the tame ones from 

 flying away, it is necessary every year to clip their quill- 

 feathers ; and this mutilation seems to deprive them not 

 only of the power, but also if the desire, to regain their 

 liberty. They accustom themselves with ease to the 

 society of man, and seem even to become attached to 

 him, probably in consequence of the kindness with which 

 they are every where treated, and the peculiar privileges 

 which they enjoy at his hands. Besides their natural 

 food, consisting of plants, insects, snails, and similar 

 productions, they eagerly devour bread and all kinds of 

 grain, and in winter are chiefly kept upon these sub- 

 stances and the same kind of provender that is given to 

 ducks and geese. 



Although naturally one of the most gentle and inof- 

 fensive of birds, the large size and great muscular power 

 of the Swan render it a formidable enemy when driven 

 to extremity, and compelled to act on the defensive. 

 In such a case it is said to give battle to the eagle, 

 and frequently even to repel his attack, forcing him to 

 seek his safety in flight. It never attempts to molest 

 any of the smaller water-fowl that inhabit its domains; 

 but in the season of its amours it will not suffer a rival 

 to approach its retreat without a sanguinary struggle, in 

 which one or other is generally destroyed. It is said 

 to attain a very great age, thirty years being commonly 

 spoken of as the term of its existence. It is even 

 asserted that in Alkmar, a town in the north of Hol- 

 land, there died, in the year 1672, a swan belonging 

 to the municipality, which bore on its collar the date 

 of 1573, and must consequently have been a century 

 old ; and several other instances of a similar nature 

 have been related by authors. We must confess, how- 

 ever, that we entertain strong doubts of the authenticity 

 of such statements, founded merely on popular tradition 

 and unsupported by any positive evidence. 



The IVild Swan. The wild swan, or, as it is not 

 unfrequently termed, the hooper, is a native of nearly the 

 whole northern hemisphere. In the old world it passes 

 northwards as far as Iceland and Kamtschatka, skirting 

 the borders of the arctic circle, but rarely entering 

 within its limits. Those which inhabit Europe gen- 

 erally pass the winter in its more southern regions, and 

 even extend their flight to Egypt and Barbary ; while 

 the Asiatic birds seem rarely to pass much farther south 

 than the shores of the Caspian and Black seas. In 

 America the range of their migrations is bounded by 

 Hudson's bay on the north, and Louisiana and the 

 Carolinas on the south. They are extremely abundant 

 in the northern parts of the new continent and in 

 Siberia; and in many districts of Russia they take the 

 place of that which is improperly termed the tame 

 species, submitting themselves with equal readiness to 

 the process of domestication. 



The external differences between these two swans 

 are not at first sight very obvious ; but, trivial as they 

 appear, they are uniform and constant. The bill of 

 the present species is entirely destitute of protuberance 

 at its base, and its colours are in a great degree 

 reversed, the black occupying the point and nearly 

 the whole of the bill, its base alone and the spaces 

 extending from it beneath the eyes being of a bright 

 yellow. The legs are black or dusky ; the iris brown; 

 and the entire plumage, as in the other species, pure 



VOL. II. 



white, but with an occasional tinge of yellowish gray. 

 The young pass through similar gradations of colour 

 with those of the tame swan, and arrive, like them, at 

 their perfect plumage about the third or fourth year. 



Slight as are these outward differences, they are 

 fully sufficient for the detection of the species; and the 

 separation founded upon them receives ample confir- 

 mation from anatomical characters of the highest im- 

 portance. Not to speak of the difference in the number 

 of their ribs, which are twelve in the wild swan and 

 eleven only in the tame, their tracheae or windpipes 

 afford unquestionable evidence of their distinctness. 

 This organ, which, in the tame SWMI, passes directly 

 from the neck into the cavity of the chest without 

 forming any previous convolution, enters in the wild 

 species an appropriate cavity in the keel of the breast- 

 bone, within which it passes to a considerable depth, 

 then returns upwards, and is again inflected over the 

 edge of the sternum before plunging into the chest. 

 Ray was the first to point out this marked distinction 

 between the two birds, which had previously been 

 regarded as doubtful species. It was neglected, how- 

 ever, by later naturalists, and even Buflbn and Linnseus 

 were inclined to consider them as mere varieties; but 

 in these days, when the importance of anatomical cha- 

 racters is fully recognised, they are universally allowed 

 to be distinct. 



So essential indeed is this character that we have no 

 hesitation in admitting a third species, lately described 

 by Mr Yarrel, as equally distinct from the hooper 

 and the tame swan, although inhabiting the same 

 localities as the former and apparently by no means of 

 unfrequent occurrence. This bird, which had been 

 entirely overlooked by all systematic ornithologists, is 

 about one third less than the common wild swan; but 

 its trachea, of smaller comparative calibre, passes still 

 more deeply into the cavity of the sternum, at the 

 extremity of which, quitting the keel, it takes a hori- 

 zontal direction, and occupies the posterior flattened 

 portion of the bone. The bronchi or subdivisions of 

 the windpipe are less than half the length of the same 

 parts in the common hooper. Outwardly the differ- 

 ences between the two birds are even less strongly 

 marked than those which distinguish the wild and 

 tame swans from each other ; consisting principally in 

 the deep orange colour of the base of the bill, which is 

 confined to a more limited space than the yellow on 

 the same part in the hooper, and does not advance 

 upon the sides ; and in the number of the quill-feathers 

 of the tail, which are eighteen in the new species and 

 twenty in the old. To this fine addition to our list 

 of native birds Mr Yarrell has applied the name of 

 Bewick's swan, (see a representation of it in Plate XIX. 

 fig. 25.) in commemoration of an artist whose labours 

 have done more to render the study of ornithology po- 

 pular in this country than the works of any writer that 

 could be named. 



The Black Swan. When the classical writers of 

 antiquity spoke of the black swan as a proverbial rarity, 

 so improbable as almost to be deemed impossible, little 

 did they imagine that in these latter days a region would 

 be discovered, nearly equal in extent to the Roman em- 

 pire even at the proudest period of its greatness, in which 

 their " rara avis" would be found in as great abundance 

 as the common wild swan upon the lakes of Europe. 

 Such, however, has been one of the least singular 

 among the many strange and unexpected results of the 

 discovery of the great southern continent of Austra- 

 lia. Scarcely a traveller who has visited its shores 

 2* 



