BIRDS 253 



(a female) 16 lbs. Mr. Thorpe and I carefully dissected the 

 bodies of the first and third. The female bird shot by Law 

 measured 4 feet 1 1 \ inches across the wings, measured carefully 

 from tip to tip. The stomach of this bird contained remains of 

 vegetable fibres mixed with much fine sand. The bird shot off 

 Burgh marsh was pure white, and appeared to be an old female. 

 The other three birds retained some cinnamon-tipped feathers 

 on the upper parts, very distinct indeed in appearance from the 

 grey feathers of the cygnets of Mute Swans, and affording a 

 grateful contrast to the blanched white body-colour. The four 

 birds all agreed exactly in the peculiar characters of the head 

 and bill. 



WHOOPER SWAN. 



Cygnus musicus, Bechst. 



The earliest hints that I can find, that wild Swans frequented 

 our lakes two centuries ago, are supplied by entries in the Rydal 

 and Naworth Accounts. The Na worth Accounts for 1 622 include 

 an entry, ' Janu ... 3. To Mr. John Skelton's man of Arma- 

 thwate bringing a swan, ij s . vj d .' There is another entry in 1624: 

 ' Decembr. 3. To one bringing a Swan, xviij d .' Similarly Sir 

 Daniel Fleming enters in his expenses for 1661, 'Dec. 1. Given 

 unto Parcivall Corratt's son, who brought hither a swan, £00, 

 01s. 00d.' A similar item appears on the 27th of the following 

 January : ' Given yesterday by my wife to Hird's daughter, who 

 brought a swan, £00, 01s. 00d.' The fact that these and other 

 swans were invariably supplied in the dead of winter, renders it 

 tolerably certain that they were wild birds. The statement 

 which Robinson made in 1709 probably represents an admix- 

 ture of truth and fiction. If it relates to wild swans, the first 

 sentence may be accepted, but the portion bracketed here must 

 be rejected: 'There come every year a number of Swans to winter 

 upon this water [and in the spring they breed on the little 

 islands in the water, or in the sedge growing by the sides of it] ; 

 and as soon as the young brood gets wing, the old ones carry 

 them into the southern rivers.' 1 



Richardson writes in 1793, of Anas cygnus, Wild Swan : 

 1 Essay toward the Nat. History of Westmorland and Cumberland, p. 60. 



