Screamers, Ducks, Geese, and Swans 



463 



and fetching, if purchased alive at the pit, about two guineas each. Tlie pit is con- 

 structed of brickwork, and is about 74 feet long, 32 feet wide, and 6 feet deep — the water, 

 adnutted from tlie river, being about 2 feet deep. The food is placed in floating troughs. 

 The birds, "when so disposed,"' says Mr. SouthweU, "leave the water by walking up a 

 sloping stage, and thus obtain access to a railed in enclosure, where they may rest and preen 

 themselves." 



The beautiful swan-like carriage, so fauuliar in the floating liird, seems to belong only to 

 the mute swan, the other species of white swans carrying the neck more or less straight, and 

 keeping the wings closely folded to the body. 



No greater anomally could at one time have been imagined than a Black Swan. For 

 centuries it was C(msidered to be an impossibility. We owe the discovery of such a bird to 

 the Dutch navigator Willem de Vlaming, wdio, more than 200 years ago, captured the first 

 specimen at the mouth of wdiat is now known, in con>e(pience, as the Swan Kiver. A year 

 after their capture accounts reached England through the burgomaster of Amsterdam, and 

 these were published by the Koyal Society in 1698. The bird is now fairly common on 

 ornamental waters, where its sooty-black plumage, set off by pure white quill-feathers and 

 coral-red bill, contrasts strongly with the typical snow-white mute swan, generally kept 

 with it. 



Equally interesting is the handsome Black-xeckeo S\VAX of South America. In this 

 species the plumage is pure white, save that of the neck, which is black. The distrilnition 

 of this species is practically the same as that of the Coscoroba swan. Breeding freely in 

 confinement, it has become a fairly comm(m bird on ornamental waters. It shares with 

 the mute swan the re[)utation of gracefulness wdien afloat, swijnming with the neck curved 

 and winys raised. 



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rhoto hij W. Itw-l] 



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[iriihaic, X B. 



j\USTEAI.IAN BLACK SWA.NS AND CYGNETS. 



The cygiiets are light-coloiired, like those of the white swans 



