443 



though I wrote directly I heard of it for further information and, if possible, for the head, I 

 could not find out any more about it, except that the body had been eaten, and all the rest 

 thrown away. Probably, from the size, it was a Whooper ; both species, however, seem occa- 

 sionally to occur in the islands, as Mr. Metivier, in his Guernsey ' French Dictionary,' under 

 the term Hucard, says ' Notre Hucard est le Whistling Swan ou Hooper des Anglais,' and 

 Mr. MacCulloch, who has lived long in the islands, informs me that the Whooper is not the only 

 species of Wild Swan that occurs here. Of course the other could only be Bewick's Swan." 

 Mr. Cordeaux says that it visits the Humber district during severe winters, but is never so 

 numerous as the Whooper ; and he remarks that he has only seen two immature birds during the 

 last fifteen years. Mr. Hancock writes (B. of North. & Durh. p. 144) respecting its occurrence 

 in Northumberland and Durham, " it is rather surprising that Bewick's Swan was not recognized 

 as a British species till 1829. In January of that year I purchased an example of it in a 

 fruiterer's shop in Newcastle ; it was shot out of a flock of about forty at Prestwick Car 

 a day or two before. I at once perceived its specific distinctness from the common species, 

 having carefully examined both its external and internal characters; it was a male. On the 

 7th of February following another example was killed, at Haydon Bridge, and was sent to the 

 Newcastle Museum. This specimen I also examined, and found it corresponded exactly in 

 every respect to my own. On dissection this second example proved to be a female ; but the 

 other internal characters were found to be similar to those of my specimen. These two 

 Swans I believe were the first fully recognized individuals of this species in England. The 

 Haydon-bridge example went into the hands of the late Mr. R. R. Wingate to stuff for the 

 Newcastle Museum, and is still preserved there. My specimen I prepared myself; and it has 

 ever since formed part of my collection. A notice on the supposed new Swan was drawn up by 

 the late Mr. R. B. Wingate, and read on the 20th of October, 1829, at a meeting of the Natural- 

 History Society of Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and was published the 

 same year in the ' Transactions ' of that Society, vol. i. p. 1 ; but by some unaccountable inadver- 

 tency my specimen was not alluded to. 



"Mr. Yarrell read at the meeting of the Linnsean Society, on the 19th of February 1830, a 

 description of the supposed new species, which was afterwards published in the ' Transactions ' 

 of that Society (vol. xvi. p. 445, 1833). It appears that that gentleman has previously (24th of 

 November 1829) given some account of the distinguishing characters of Bewick's Swan to the 

 Zoological Club of the Linnsean Society. 



" In November 1829 seven specimens of the bird were killed by a right and left shot, upon 

 Sweethope Lough, by the gamekeeper of the late Sir John Trevelyan, Bart., of Wallington. In 

 February 1837 five specimens of this Swan were shot out of a flock of eleven, upon a large fish- 

 pond at Blaydon, by the gamekeeper of the late Sir Matthew White Bidley, Bart.; two of these 

 are preserved in my collection." 



According to Mr. Robert Gray (B. of W. of Scotl. p. 359) it is found in the Outer Hebrides, 

 frequenting the same lakes as the Whooper. It has also been obtained on Loch Lomond, and on 

 Hogganfield Loch near Glasgow ; four were shot in January and February 1871 on Castle-Semple 

 estate, Renfrewshire ; early in the latter month other two were killed at Barnashalag, in Argyle- 



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