affirm, that once in the territory of Dronten, as he was standing on the seashore 

 early in the morning, he heard an unusual and sweet murmur, composed of the 

 most pleasant whistlings and sounds ; he knew not at first whence they came, 

 or how they were made, for he saw no man near to produce them ; but looking 

 round about him, and climbing to the top of a certain promontory, he there es- 

 pied an infinite number of swans gathered together in a bay, and making the 

 most delightful harmony — a sweeter in all his life-time he had never heard." 



To this testimony Goldsmith appends his personal opinion in the following 

 words : 'Thus it appears that our modern authorities in favour of the singing 

 of swans are rather suspicious, since they are reduced to this Mr. George Braun 

 and John Rostorph, the native of a country remarkable for ignorance and credul- 

 ity." Goldsmith's own belief was that the ancients had some mythological 

 meaning in ascribing melody to the swan, "and as for the moderns, they scarcely 

 deserve our regard. The swan must, therefore, be content with that share of 

 fame that it possesses on the score of its beauty, since the melody of its voice, 

 without better testimony, will scarcely be admitted by even the credulous." 



This better testimony is furnished by Charles de Kay, who says that modern 

 bird-lovers have heard the sw^ans of Russia singing their own dirge in the North, 

 when, having lingered too long before migration, reduced in strength by lack 

 of food, and frozen fast to the ice where they have rested over night, they 

 clang their lives out, even as the ancients said. 



Inasmuch as we have record of the Singing, or Whistling Swan from Egypt 

 to Alaska and the Aleutian Isles, with testimony of modern scientists as well 

 as ancient poets in proof of the vocality of this, the largest of singing birds, the 

 question becomes one of quality of song rather than of the actuality of the 

 song itself. M. Montbeillard's opinion of the whistler's vocal exertions is thus 

 expressed: 'The bursts of its voice form a sort of modulated song, yet the 

 shrill and scarcely diversified notes of its loud clarion sounds differ widely from 

 the tender melody, the sweet, brilliant variety of our birds of song." And M. 

 Morin even composed a memoir, entitled "Why swans that sang so well in an- 

 cient times now sing so badly.'' It is probable that the ancients, with due con- 

 sideration for the difference in size between the swan and all other songsters, 

 may have also given consideration in the same ratio to the theory of the en- 

 chantment that distance lends ; and it is more than probable that all of this con- 

 fusion of testimony resulted from confusion of species; for, as Charles de Kay 

 explains, observations of the Mute Swan caused people to assign the song of 

 the dying swan to the most fabulous of fables ; while Hearne, who observed the 

 Trumpeter, makes the following vigorous statement : 'T have heard them in 

 serene evenings, after sunset, make a noise not very unlike that of a French 

 horn, but entirely divested of every note that constituted melody, and have 

 often been sorry that it did not forebode their death." 



Aldrovand, referring to the structure of the organs of voice as countenanc- 

 ing the poetical creed of the singing swan, says, "For when we observe the 



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