BIRDS. ' 41 1 



ancients with the experience of the moderns, concerning the 

 vocal powers of this bird. The tame swan is one of the most 

 silent of all birds ; and the wild one has a note extremely loud 

 and disagreeable. It is probable, the convolutions of the wind- 

 pipe may contribute to increase the clangour of it; for such is the 

 harshness of its voice, that the bird from thence has been called 

 the hooper. In neither 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 opinion of antiquity, that the swan was the most 

 melodious 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 col- 

 lected by Aldrovandus; and still more professedly by the Abbe 

 Gedoyn, in the Transactions of the Academy of Belles Lettres. 

 From these accounts, it appears that, while Plato, Aristotle, 

 and Diodorus Siculus, believed the voeality of the swan, Pliny 

 and Virgil seem to doubt that received opinion. In this equi- 

 poise of authority Aldrovandus seems to have determined in fa- 

 vour of the Greek philosophers ; and the form of tiie windpipe 

 in the wild swan, so much resembling a musical instrument, in- 

 clined 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 Mantua, 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 student in divinity, and a Norwe- 

 gian by nation. This man did, upon ins credit, and with tlie 

 interposition of an oath, solemnly affirm, that once in the terri- 

 tory of Dronten, as he was standing on the sea-shore, early in 

 the morning, he heard an unusual and sweet murmur, composed 

 of the most pleasant whistlings and sounds ; he knew not at first 

 whence they came, or how they were made, for he saw no man 

 near to produce them; but looking round about him, and climb- 

 ing to the top of a certain promoiitoiy, he there espied an infin- 

 ite number of swans gathered together in a bay, and making the 

 most delightful harmony ; a sweeter in all his life-time he had 

 never heard." Those were accounts sufficient at least to keep 

 opinion in suspense, though in contradiction to our own experi- 



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