CYGNUS BEWICKII. 



gun, upon Sweehope Lough in Northumberland, by the gamekeeper of Sir 

 John Trevelyan, Bart, of Wallington ; and Mr Yarrell, in a letter to 

 Mr Selby, mentions two others that he had procured this last winter in the 

 south, besides other specimens he had discovered in the collections of dif- 

 ferent individuals, and which had been considered as specimens of the 

 Common Hooper. We have ourselves been able to give the subject the 

 fullest investigation, having had an opportunity of examining and com- 

 paring, not only the two original specimens, but also several others which 

 have since been killed, with a number of the common species, and no 

 doubt whatever remains upon our minds of their being specifically distinct *. 

 In external appearance, the Cygnus Beivickii bears a very close resemblance 

 to the Common Hooper, and upon a cursory view may be easily mistaken 

 for a small variety of that bird, which indeed appears hitherto to have been 

 the case. The detection of several specimens, which have remained for 

 many years in the collection of individuals, as Common Wild Swans, shew 

 that it is not a new comer, but may with the Hooper have visited this 

 country for an indefinite period, though not in such numbers as the latter 

 is known to do. The peculiarity of the internal structure had also previ- 

 ously attracted some notice, for Montague, in his Supplement to the Orni- 

 thological Dictionary, article " Whistling Swan," gives an accurate descrip- 

 tion of the trachea and sternum of a bird of this new species, which, as hav- 

 ing been observed in a male bird, he, without extending his observations, 

 or noticing the other peculiar features of the specimen, supposed indicative 

 and peculiar to the male of the Common Wild Swan (Cygnus ferus). 

 The exterior characteristics which distinguish the new sort from the Hooper, 

 consists, first, in the great inferiority of size, the new species being about 

 a third less than the usual run of the latter, the average length of Cyg- 

 nus Bewickii is 3 feet 10 inches, the width 6 feet ; the length of the 

 Hooper 5 feet, the width 8 feet or upwards ; secondly, in the form of the 

 bill, which at the base differs from that of the Hooper, and in old speci- 

 mens is furnished, at the junction of the upper mandible to the cranium, 

 with a considerable tubercle or knob ; thirdly, in the number of the tail 

 feathers, the new kind having only eighteen, the Hooper twenty. The 

 wings are shorter in proportion, and when closed do not cover so large 

 a portion of the tail ; the legs are blacker, and the neck appears in pro- 



* The result of this examination has been communicated to the Natural History Society of 

 Northumberland^ Durham, and Newcastle, by Mr Selby, and the paper is likely to appear in a 

 short time, in the 1st vol. of the Transactions of that Society. 



