184 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Description Food Nest. 



pleasure, and every part takes a new grace with 

 new motion. It will swim faster than a man can 

 walk. 



This bird has long been rendered domestic ; 

 and it is now a doubt whether there be any of 

 the tame kind in a srate of nature. The colour 

 of the tame swan is entirely white, and it gene- 

 rally weighs full twenty pounds. The windpipe 

 sinks down into the lungs in the ordinary man- 

 ner; and it is the most silent of all the feathered 

 tribes ; it can do nothing more than hiss, which 

 it does on receiving any provocation. In these 

 respects it is very different from the wild or 

 whistling swan. 



This beautiful bird is as delicate in its appe- 

 tites, as elegant in its form. Its chief food is 

 corn, bread, herbs growing in the water, and 

 roots and seeds, which are found near the mar- 

 gin. At the time of incubation it prepares a nest 

 in some retired part of the bank, and chiefly 

 where there is an islet in the stream. This is 

 composed of water-plants, long grass, and sticks; 

 and the male and female assist in forming it with 

 great assiduity. The swan lays seven or eight 

 eggs, white, one per day, much larger than those 

 of a goose, with a hard, and sometimes a tube- 

 rous shell. It sits near two months before its 

 young are excluded; which are ash-coloured 

 when they first leave the shell, and for some 

 months after. It is not a little dangerous to ap- 

 proach the old ones, when their little family are 



