Mr. Selby on a new Species ofSrcan. 21 



by some eminent comparative anatomists, no such sexual difference 

 has been observed. But after a long investigation at Brookes's un- 

 rivalled museum, in which he assisted me with zeal and friendship, 

 I found a single sternum, presented to him by Dr. Leach with the very 

 appearance described in the above quotation from Montagu." This 

 sternum, considered at the time it was presented to Mr. Brookes, in all 

 probability, as a mere variety of form in the anatomy of the Common 

 Hooper, no doubt, had belonged to a bird of the newly-discovered spe- 

 cies. So closely allied as it is both in outward form and internal struc- 

 ture to the Hooper, we may also presume that its economy is similar ; 

 of its peculiar habits, I cannot, however, speak particularly, where so few 

 opportunities for observation have been afforded. It was, however, 

 remarked, with respect to those killed at Sweet-hope Lough, that their 

 voice or cry was very weak, differing very widely in this respect from 

 the loud and sonorous call of the Hooper.* Mr. Yarrell has suggested 

 the probability of its being one of the Swans mentioned by Hearne as 

 visiting North America, for that traveller says, that the inhabitants of 

 Hudson's Bay are visited by two kinds of wild Swans, one of which is 

 more than a fourth less than the other.t This is a description which cer- 

 tainly accords with that of Q/jg'WMS Bexvickii, and as both it and the other 

 are known to the natives of the Arctic regions, it is not, perhaps, pre- 

 suming too far to assume, that the two species, which visit that part of 

 the new continent, are the same as those which resort to us during the 

 severity of the Polar winter. 



I shall now proceed to a detail of the various characters exhibited by 

 the new species as compared v/ith the corresponding parts of the Hooper, 

 commencing with those of the exterior upon which it is usual to found 

 specific description From the measurement of the different specimens 



* A fact, however, previously inferred by Mr. Wingate, from the diiFerence of struc- 

 ture in the lower part of the trachea of the two species. 



f Captain Franklin in the Journal of his second expedition to the Artie Eegions, when 

 residing at the station on the Great Bear Lake, during the winter of 1827, remarks (p. 307), 

 "We welcomed the appearance of two large sized Swans on the 15th of April, as the har- 

 bingers of spring ; and on the 20th of May, the small sized Swans were seen, which the 

 traders considered the last of the migratory birds." 



