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ORD. III. GENUS IX. SWAN. 



Bill, arched above, flat beneath, finilhing with a nail at the end forming a ("mail 



hook, and edged with teeth. 

 Nostrils, oval, and fituate under the arch of the bill, at a diftance from the head. 

 Tongue, broad, flat, indented at the edges, and flefhy. 

 Toes, three before, united by a broad web ; hind toe fmall. 



SPECIES I. WHISTLING SWAN. 



PI. z 37 . 



Anas Cygnus ferus. Lin. Syjl. I. p. 194. 

 Le Cygne fauvage. Brif. Orn. VI. p. 292. 



The whittling fvvan, or hooper, as it is fometimes called from the noife it makes, 

 weighs about fixteen pounds, is five feet in length, and feven in breadth. The neck is 

 three feet long, and very {lender. The end of the beak is black ; the upper part of it, 

 and the naked fpace between it and the eye, are of a pale orange colour, bounded above 

 by a narrow fillet of black feathers : the eye-lids are yellow : eyes, grey brown : the 

 whole of the plumage glofly white : legs black. This bird is Angular in having a flexi- 

 ble joint about the middle of the upper mandible. 



This fpecies vifits the northern parts of Scotland in winter, and, if the cold be very 

 fevere, fometimes proceeds to the fouthem parts of England. In 1788, I had the plea- 

 fure of feeing thirty of thefe graceful majeftic birds alight in the water in the front of 

 my houfe near Feverfham, in Kent. Their continuance was but fhort, as the loud and 

 lhrill cry they made attracted at leaft fifty men to purfue them, who fcarcely gave them 

 time to wet their beaks. By this faculty of uttering a loud cry it is ftrikingly diftin- 

 guifhed from the tame, or mute fwan, which is capable of nothing more than a hifs, or a 

 flight cackle. This is fuppofed to be owing to the difference in their windpipes ; that of 

 the whittling fwan being refledted back again, like the tube of a trumpet, after it has entered 

 the cheft a little way, and dividing into two branches, to join the lungs, after it has en- 

 tered the cheft a fecond time. The food of this fpecies confifts principally of herbs, 

 which its toothed bill is well adapted for cutting. It breeds chiefly in the more northern 

 parts of Europe, though a few make their nefts on the iflets in the frefh-water lakes of 

 fome of the Orkney Ifles. For the egg fee PI. LI. 



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