AMERICAN SWAN. 133 



is so thin as to be scarcely perceptible ; the sterno-tracheal extremely 

 slender. There is a single pair of inferior laryngeal muscles. 



The stomach of another female contains the remains of crustaceous 

 animals, one of which, nearly entire, is a small roundish crab, 11 

 twelfths in breadth. 



AMERICAN SWAN. 



Cygnus Americanus, Sharpless. 



PLATE CCCCXI. Male. 



It was undoubtedly supposed by the authors of the Fauna Boreali- 

 Americana that this species of Swan, more recently shewn by Dr J. 

 T. Sharpless of Philadelphia to be distinct, was the same as Bewick's 

 Swan, Cygnus Bewickii, equally well characterized by my friend Wil- 

 liam Yakeell, Esq. as distinct from the Common Wild Swan of 

 Em-ope, C. ferus. But it has fortunately happened that while the au- 

 thors above alluded to, my friends Dr Richardson and Mr Swain son, 

 gave the name of Gygnus Bewickii to the species now under considera- 

 tion, they actually described the C. Americanus of Sharpless. Of this 

 I have satisfied myself by comparing the measurements of a specimen 

 procured at Igloolik, in Lat. Q&°, on the 19th June 1823, with those of 

 several recent individuals obtained at Baltimore and Philadelphia ; 

 three of which are in my possession, preserved in rum. These I have 

 found to correspond with the Igloolik bird, as nearly as is usually the 

 case in birds of the same species, differing only in details modified by 

 age and sex. The latter Swan is described as " pure white, except the 

 croAvn, nape, and superior parts of the neck, which are deeply tinged 

 with reddish-orange, and the belly which is slightly glossed with the 

 same. Bill black ; cere orange (that colour entirely behind the nos- 

 trils) ; irides also orange ; feet black ; old birds entirely white, and 

 young ones grey." All these circumstances belong to our present spe- 

 cies, as well as to the Trumpeter Swan, excepting the colour of the 

 bill of the latter. 



Whilst in London, in the winter of 1837j I had ample opportuni- 



