TRUMPETER SWAN, 299 



TRUMPETER SWAN. 

 Olor buccinator. 



Char. Plumage white; bill and legs black. Length 60 to 65 inches. 



Nest. Usually on dry upland, hid amid scrubby bushes ; made of grass 

 and twigs lined with feathers and down. 



Eggs. 2-6; white with a rough chalk-like surface; average size 4.40 

 X 2.60. 



According to Richardson, ^is is the most common Swan in 

 the interior of the fur countries, which it frequents to breed 

 as far south as the 6ist parallel, but principally within the 

 Arctic Circle. In its migrations it is generally seen to precede 

 the Geese by a few days. It is to the Trumpeter that the bulk 

 of the Swan-skins imported, by the Hudson Bay Company 

 belong. Lawson remarks that these birds arrive in great flocks 

 in Carolina in autumn, and frequent the rivers and fresh waters, 

 retiring thence to breed in the North as early as February. 

 This species, remarkable for its loud clarion, descends the 

 valley of the Mississippi in great flights at the approach of 

 winter. Hearne, who also observed this Trumpeter, remarks : 

 " I have heard them, in serene evenings, after sunset, make a 

 noise not very unlike that of a French horn, but entirely 

 divested of every note that constituted melody, and have often 

 been sorry that it did not forebode their death." The trachea 

 is well supplied with the means of producing this hollow clang, 

 a fold of it entering a protuberance on the dorsal or interior 

 aspect of the sternum at its upper part, which is wanting both 

 in Cygnus ferus and C. bewickii ; in other respects the wind- 

 pipe is distributed through the sternum nearly as in the latter 

 of these species. 



The Trumpeter is a bird of the interior, and is seen but occa- 

 sionally to the eastward of the Mississippi, and is rare on the 

 Atlantic coast. A few examples have been seen on Lake Ontario. 

 It breeds from Iowa and Dakota northward. 



Note. — The Whooping Swan {Olor cygnus), a European bird, 

 occurs occasionally in Greenland. 



