266 WATER FOWL. 



majority of Swan Have been placed for many years (the reasons 

 given being so very slight and insufficient), I am fully aware of 

 the difficulties that exist in deciding as to what kind of char- 

 acters and how many, in the conflicting opinions of ornithol- 

 ogists, there should be to properly establish a genus; for upon 

 this subject there is not complete accord among naturalists. 

 But, waiving these points, it is generally conceded that the char- 

 acter or characters upon which a genus is founded should at least 

 be permanent, so that an animal included in that genus might 

 at all stages of its adult existence be able to exhibit the proofs 

 that it properly belonged there. Otherwise, if this should not be 

 so, a species, as it underwent modifications at different periods of 

 its life, would have to be included in various genera, a proposition 

 not to be entertained for a moment by any serious scientific per- 

 son. The main character to separate Cygnus and Olor from 

 each other, as given by Stejneger, is, as I have already quoted, the 

 distribution of the down on the head of the young birds, an evan- 

 escent, adolescent, and unreliable distinction, one not possessed 

 by the adults, and which, if recognized, would place the young in 

 one genus, the adults in another. This fact is indisputable, and 

 the error it embodies is one no ornithologist should countenance, 

 much less perpetuate by any act of his own. The single remain- 

 ing point, a cuneate or rounded tail, of itself can hardly be 

 deemed sufficient to establish a genus, even by the most extreme 

 advocate of novelties. For the reasons here given, which to my 

 mind are ample, I have not adopted Olor, but have retained the 

 familiar and appropriate term by which the White Swan have 

 been so long known. 



Three species of Swan are now included in the avi-fauna of 

 North America; one, however, possessing but slight claims to be 

 considered a resident of the continent. Of the two that are 

 unquestionably North American, the Trumpeter has a com- 

 paratively restricted dispersion, and is not nearly so well known 

 as its relative, the Whistling Swan. Both are magnificent birds, 

 the Trumpeter, as its name implies, being remarkable for its 

 sonorous voice. The Whooping Swan, a straggler into far-away 

 Greenland, is a native of the Eastern Hemisphere, and has 

 never appeared upon the continent of North America. It is 

 easily recognizable, if anyone should happen to meet it within 

 our boundaries (a very unlikely event), by the large amount of 

 yellow on the bill. 



