242 LECTURE VI. 



note of all we ever beheld or heard of, if gene- 

 rally taken, and comprehending all Swans, we 

 cannot assent thereto : surely he that is bit by a 

 Tarantula shall never be cured with this music ; 

 and with the same hopes we may expect to hear 

 the harmony of the spheres." 



There is a highly curious species of Swan, a 

 t;^':native of some parts of New Holland, and the 

 '> neighbouring regions, called the Black Swan, which 

 I have myself some years ago described under the 

 name of Anas Plutonia. It is sometimes brought 

 over to this country in a living state, and Avhoever 

 has closely attended to it, must have been struck 

 with the sweetness of the tones which it occasionally 

 utters : they are not of long continuance, but sin- 

 gularly melodious. I must here observe that the 

 black or southern Swan, though so lately made 

 familiar to the European Naturalists, from the dis- 

 coveries in the Southern Pacific, appears to have 

 been known to navigators a great many years 

 ago, since on some of the older kind of globes 

 and maps, we may occasionally observe about 

 these regions, an inscription importing that black 

 Swans are there to be found. 



The genus Pdecanus or Pelican, is distin- 



