46 THE MUTE SWAN, 
the bill reddish orange; the irides brown, the legs and feet 
black.” | 
The female, it is to be noted, besides being smaller, has the 
tubercle smaller, the neck more slender and swims deeper in the 
water. 
In immature birds, such as are most commonly seen in India, 
the bill exhibits no trace of a tubercle; the feathers of the fore- 
head are prolonged to a point, only very slightly truncated. If 
from each side of the frontal tongue of feathers, about half an 
inch from its point, a slightly curving line be drawn to a point 
on the edge of the upper mandible, about a quarter of an inch 
from the gape, the whole of the space enclosed by such line 
between it and the eye is perfectly black. At the extreme point 
of the frontal feathers again isa black band, about a quarter 
of an inch wide, which extends right and left over the whole 
nareal space; the nail is black; the rest of the bill is light 
grey, fleshy grey, pale fleshy yellow, to pale buff. The legs and 
feet are greyish black; the irides dark brown. 
THE PLATE of the adult of this species, (the right hand figure,) 
is satisfactory, except that the black patch from the nostril to 
the tubercle is not shown; in some the anterior portion of 
the tubercle also is orange. 
In the adult the entire plumage is a very pure white with, 
at times, a creamy or buffy tinge on the crown and back of 
upper neck, often disappearing in the dry skin. 
At the end of October the young are said to have the head, 
neck, and entire upper surface a nearly uniform sooty greyish 
brown, and the under surface of a lighter greyish brown ; the 
beak is then (where not blackish) of a light slatey grey, but 
in the immature birds, as we generally see them, the general 
colour of the lower surface is a dull white ; of the upper whitey- 
brown ; the crown and occiput buffy-brown ; the greater portion 
of the wing, the scapulars and rump are buffy or sandy brown. 
There is nowhere any trace of a “sooty grey.” The brown 
is essentially a buffy or sandy brown, though here and there, 
as in the feathers at the base of the neck, a faint greyish shade 
zs intermingled. 
THIS SPECIES may be distinguished at any age at which we 
ever see it, from both the other species—known or supposed 
to have occurred within our limits—first by its black lores, and 
secondly by the shape of its tail, which is comparatively long 
and pointed or wedge-shaped, and zo¢ short and rounded as it 
is in both C. ferus and C. bewickz. 
