THE HOOPER, AQ 
nail and the tip of the bill is black, the black extending upwards 
as a point along the culmen to within perhaps one inch of the 
margin of the frontal feathers, while the yellow extends 
forward along the sides of the upper mandible to within, 
perhaps, one and a half inches of the point, the two colors 
meeting in a slanting line on either side of the bill. Part of the - 
base of the lower mandible and the space between the rami 
yellow ; the rest of the lower mandible, black ; the iris is brown ; 
the feet and claws black. 
THE PLATE, (the left hand fizure,) conveys a sufficiently accurate 
idea of the adult of this species, but the neck is somewhat too 
long and too gracefully curved. In this species the bird usually 
holds the neck comparatively stiffly and straight. 
A young bird killed in March measured 44 inches in length 
and weighed 8:25 tbs. The basal portions of the bill were flesh 
colour instead of yellow ; the irides dusky ; the feet greyish dusky, 
with a reddish tinge ; the feathers on the forehead and before the 
eyes dull orange ; the rest of the head and upper neck behind 
brown ; the underparts white, tinged with rufous ; the lower 
neck behind, and the rest of the upper parts not already 
mentioned, ashy grey. 
BOTH THE Hooper and Bewick’s Swan are, as already noticed, 
at once distinguished from the Mute Swan by their comparatively 
short and rounded (not wedge-shaped) tails. 
The two former species differ, dzrds of the same sex and age 
being compared, in the greatly superior size of the Hooper. 
But young female Hoopers are decidedly smaller than old 
male Bewick’s Swans, so that it will not do to depend blindly 
on dimensions, without carefully considering the sex and 
apparent age of the specimen examined, and the surest external] 
diagnosis consists in the far greater amount and somewhat 
different distribution of the black on the bills of Bewick’s bird, 
which is shown in the plates and fully explained in describing 
the colours of the soft parts of each species. I may add 
that in the Hooper the frontal feathers are prolonged into an 
angle, while in Bewick’s Swan they terminate in a semicircle, 
The internal distinctions, first pointed out by Yarrell, in the 
different arrangement of the wind-pipe, &c., are even more 
conspicuous, but do not fall within the scope of a work like the 
present, 
G 
