220 TRUMPETER SWAN. 



Townsend corroborates the observations of the two eminent travellers by 

 stating, that the latter species is much more numerous than the large C. 

 Buccinator. 



The Trumpeter Swans make their appearance on the lower portions of the 

 waters of the Ohio about the end of October. They throw themselves at 

 once into the larger ponds or lakes at no great distance from the river, giving 

 a marked preference to those which are closely surrounded by dense and tall 

 cane-brakes, and there remain until the water is closed by ice, when they 

 are forced to proceed southward. During mild winters I have seen Swans 

 of this species in the ponds about Henderson until the beginning of March, 

 but only a few individuals, which may have staid there to recover from their 

 wounds. When the cold became intense, most of those which visited the 

 Ohio would remove to the Mississippi, and proceed down that stream as the 

 severity of the weather increased, or return if it diminished; for it has 

 appeared to me, that neither very intense cold nor great heat suit them so 

 well as a medium temperature. I have traced the winter migrations of this 

 species as far southward as Texas, where it is abundant at times, and where 

 I saw a pair of young ones in captivity, and quite domesticated, that had 

 been procured in the winter of 1S36. They were about two years old, and 

 pure white, although of much smaller size than even the younger one repre- 

 sented in the plate before you, having perhaps been stinted in food, or having 

 suffered from their wounds, as both had been shot. The sound of their well- 

 known notes reminded me of the days of my youth, when I was half-yearly 

 in the company of birds of this species. 



At New Orleans, where I made the drawing of the young bird here given, 

 the Trumpeters are frequently exposed for sale in the markets, being 

 procured on the ponds of the interior, and on the great lakes leading to the 

 waters of the Gulf of Mexico. This species is unknown to my friend, the 

 Rev. John Bachman, who, during a residence of twenty years in South 

 Carolina, never saw or heard of one there; whereas in hard winters the 

 Cygnus Americanus is not uncommon, although it does not often proceed 

 farther southward than that State. The waters of the Arkansas and its 

 tributaries are annually supplied with Trumpeter Swans, and the largest 

 individual which I have examined was shot on a lake near the junction of 

 that river with the Mississippi. It measured nearly ten feet in alar extent, 

 and weighed above thirty-eight pounds. The quills, which I used in drawing 

 the feet and claws of many small birds, were so hard, and yet so elastic, that 

 the best steel-pen of the present day might have blushed, if it could, to be 

 compared with them. 



Whilst encamped in the Tawapatee Bottom, when on a fur-trading voyage, 

 our keel-boat was hauled close under the eastern shore of the Mississippi, 



