2 yo BRITISH BIRDS. 



esteemed by them as a delicious food, as are also 

 the eggs, which are gathered in the spring. The 

 Icelanders, Kamtschatdales, and other natives of 

 the northern world, dress their skins with the 

 down on, sew them together, and make them 

 into garments of various kinds : the northern 

 American Indians do the same, and sometimes 

 weave the down as barbers weave the cawls for 

 wigs, and then manufacture it into ornamental 

 dresses for the women of rank, while the larger 

 feathers are formed into caps and plumes to 

 decorate the heads of their chiefs and warriors. 

 They also gather the feathers and down in large 

 quantities, and barter or sell them to the inhabi- 

 tants of more civilized nations. 



Buifon was of opinion that the Tame Swan had 

 been derived originally from the wild species ; 

 but other naturalists entertained a contrary opinion, 

 which they formed chiefly on the difference be- 

 tween them in the singular conformation of the 

 windpipe. Willoughby says, "The windpipe of 

 the Wild Swan, after a strange and wonderful 

 manner, enters the breast bone in a cavity pre- 

 pared for it, and is therein reflected, and after its 

 egress at the divarication is contracted into a 

 narrow compass by a broad and bony cartilage ; 

 then being divided into two branches, goes on to 

 the lungs : these branches, before they enter the 

 lungs, are dilated, and, as it were, swollen out 

 into two cavities." Dr. Hey sham corroborates the 

 above, and adds, that the Wild Swan, in this par- 

 ticular, differs not only from the the Tame Swan, 

 but also from every other bird. The only ob- 

 servable external differences between the two 



