CYGNUS BEWICKII, Wingate. 

 Bewick's Swan. 



PLATE XCV. 



C. niveus, fronte genisque ferrugineo maculatis ; rostro basi tuberculo luteo-flavo, 

 pedibus nigris, Cauda cuneata, rectricibus octodecim. 



Cygnus Bewickii, Selhy, in Trans, of Nat. Hist. Soc. of Northumberland, Durham and 

 Newcastle, vol. i. part i. 



W e take advantage of the earliest opportunity to give a figure and de- 

 scription, of a species of Swan, which has lately been added to the list 

 of the British Fauna. The honour of the discovery is due to the acute 

 discrimination of Mr Richard Wingate of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who, 

 in consequence of the observations he made upon two specimens of Wild 

 Swans, killed in the neighbourhood of Newcastle, in the winters of 1828-9, 

 and sent to him to be preserved, read a notice before the Literary and 

 Philosophical Society of that town, in which he stated the peculiarities he 

 had observed in both these birds, regarding their outward form and in- 

 ternal structure, and his opinion that they were such as to entitle them to 

 rank as a species perfectly distinct from the common Wild Swan or Hooper 

 (Cygnus fer us), and equally so from the tame Swan (Cygnus olorj. This 

 opinion of Mr Wingate induced other naturalists to give their attention 

 to the subject, ^ and Mr Yarrell, whose attainments as an ornithologist 

 and comparative anatomist are well known, soon discovered other addi- 

 tional facts, which proved the correctness of the views first advanced by 

 Mr Wingate. We may add, a third capture of several birds of the new 

 sort during the course of last winter, in different parts of England, all 

 agreeing with each other in structure, and each exhibiting the peculiarities 

 which distinguish them from the Cygnus ferus, and that confirmatory 

 character, which alone was wanting to substantiate fully and satisfactorily 

 the claim advanced by Mr Wingate. In November last, seven swans, 

 winch all proved of the new kind, were killed by one discharge of a double 



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