1 94 ANSERINE. 



GENUS XCIIL- CYGNUS (SWAN). 



SPECIES 186 THE HOOPING SWAN. 



Cygnusferus. Ray. 



Cygne a bee jaune ou sauvage. Temm. 



Wild Swan. Hooper. 



THE HOOPER is only an occasional winter visitant to our 

 shores, and is very irregular in its appearance, some years, 

 perhaps, elapsing before a specimen may occur, and again 

 during other winters as many as five or six appearing in the 

 markets, and in the possession of the taxidermists of the 

 city. 



Magnificent and stately in appearance, the hooper occu- 

 pies the same position among the Natatorial birds as the 

 eagle with the Raptores, or the crane with the birds compos- 

 ing its own order. 



Beautiful in plumage, the entire of which is of a pure un- 

 sullied white, the hooper yields to none of our birds, indige- 

 nous or migratory, for the interest attached to it. Of con- 

 siderable size, an adult female whose dimensions were taken 

 by the author had an extent of wing equal to eight feet, 

 with a length from bill to tail of five. Thus the appearance 

 of a flock of these birds might indeed excite the attention of 

 the most unobservant. Flying at a considerable altitude in the 

 air, and with great rapidity, from the large expanse of wing, 

 they in most instances attract attention by their modulated 

 and musical hooping cry as it conies distinctly down to us 

 from the upper air mellowed by distance : 



" So the white swans from the firmament swoop, 

 With their gong-throated queen, a beautiful troop, 

 Wheeling gracefully earthward, and floating as though 

 The young winds were wooing fair cloudlets of snow." 



When thus observed in flocks they are either formed in a 

 lengthened line, or in the wedge-shaped figure in which swans 

 usually fly. 



On the authority of Mr. R. Glennon, towards spring the 

 small lakes in the county of Mayo are tenanted by flocks of 

 these birds congregated there preparatory to their return to 

 those regions of snow to which their plumage accords, and ap- 

 proximates so chastely in appearance. And, strange to say, al- 

 though they occur in considerable numbers at that time, they 

 are never interfered with or molested by the peasants of the 



