6 Oberholser, Genera and Species of Cygnince. [ist^'juiy 



especially breadth of bill, less certainly by greater length of wing, 

 although there are apparently no reliable colour characters. 



For the proper name of this Swan we must, however, 

 undoubtedly go back to Cygnns minor (Keyserling and Blasius),* 

 based on the Cygnus olor (var. B, minor) of Pallas. f Indeed, 

 Keyserling and Blasius quote "Cygnus minor (Pallas), "J and 

 transcribe part of that author's description § ; but a glance at 

 Pallas's page will serve to show that he did not use the term minor 

 in a nomenclatural sense, but merely to designate informally the 

 smaller of two forms of his Cygnus olor. Pallas gives the 

 dimensions of a specimen from the Selenga River, which should 

 therefore stand as the type locality. These dimensions clearly 

 indicate that his bird belonged to the large east Siberia race, which 

 Mr. Alpheraky later named Cygnus bewicki jankowskii \\ ; and in so 

 far as pertinent are — converted from English inches and lines to 

 millimeters — exposed culmen, loi ; height of bill at base, 45 ; 

 width of bill, 32.3. 



Olor cygnus (Linnaeus). 



Anas cygnus, Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, i., 1758, p. 122. 



Cygnus musicus, Bechstein, Gemeinn. Naturg. Vog. Deutschl., iv., 

 i8og, p. 830, pi. XXXV. (Thurihgia, Germany). 



Cygnus melanorhynchus, Meyer, in Meyer and Wolf, Taschenb. 

 Deutsch. Vogelk., ii., 1810, p. 498 (Geinsheim, on the Rhine, 

 Germany). 



Cygmts islandicus, Brehm, Isis, 1830, p. 1125 (Iceland) ; Brehm, 

 Handb. Naturg. Vogel. Deutschl., 1831, pp. 833, 1035, pi. xH., fig. i. 



Cygnus ferus, Eyton, Monogr. Anat., 1838, p. loi (Great Britain). 



Cygnus xanthorhinus, Naumann, Vog. Deutschl., xi., 1842, p. 478, 

 pi. 296 (Germany). 



Cygnus linnei, Malm, Gotebs. och Bohusl. Fauna, 1877, pp. 90, 

 343 (Goteborg, Sweden). 



Chars, sp. — Lores and basal portion of bill to be5'ond nostrils 

 yellow in adult ; entire plumage white ; wing, 558-660 mm. 

 Type Locality. — Sweden. 



Geographical Distribution. — Arctic Europe and Asia, including 

 Iceland, and formerly Greenland, migrating to Japan, China, 

 Turkestan, Persia, Asia Minor, Palestine, lower Egypt, Algiers, and 

 Spain, casually to southern Greenland and northern India. 



There seems to be no sufficient reason for rejecting the Linnaean 

 specific name cygnus as applied to this species, although many 

 authors have used musicus (Bechstein), apparently, for the most 

 part at least, to avoid the tautonymous combination Cygnus cygnus ; 

 but even this invalid objection is done away with when the bird 

 enters the genus Olor. 



* Wirbelth. Europ., 1840, p. Ixxxii., J Wirbelth. Europ., 1840, p. Ixxxii. 



p. 222. § Ibid., p. 222. 



tZoogr. Rosso- Asiat., ii., 181 1, p. 214. || Priroda i Okhota, Sept., 1904, p. 10. 



