THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY 
of several hundreds before me, without the possibility of 
getting quite within shooting distance. 
The skins of Swans still covered by the down, which is 
very thick, are often used in our country for bonnets and 
tippets, and at Hudson’s Bay, a great trade former^ existed 
with the down and quills. The Indians also employ the 
skins for dresses for their women of rank, and the feathers 
for ornaments for the head. 
It is a curious circumstance, that Wilson has neither fig- 
ured nor described this beautiful and common bird in his Or- 
nithology, but Mr. Lawson the engraver of his splendid 
plates, and also his personal friend, informs me, he had 
waited for another southern expedition, which he did not 
live to perform. A particular history, in detail, of this 
splendid bird has heretofore never been given to the public. 
The following description of the Genus Cygnus I have 
taken from Buonaparte’s Synop. Birds. U. S. “ Bill at base 
higher than broad, gibbous, subcylindric above, of equal 
breadth throughout, obtuse : teeth lamilliform : upper 
mandible unguiculated and curved at tip, lower shorter, 
narrower, covered by the margins of the upper, flattened : 
nostrils medial, oval, open, pervious, covered by a mem- 
brane : tongue thick, fleshy, broad, fimbriated on the sides, 
obtuse. Head small, lora naked : neck longer than the 
body : body much compressed, elegantly shaped : feet far 
back, very short and stout : wings long when folded, pri- 
maries hardly reach beyond the secondaries : first and fourth 
primaries equal, second and third longest. 
“ C. ferus. White, bill black, without protuberance, bare 
space round the eye yellow.” 
The American Swan is five feet long — bill three inches — 
twenty feathers in the tail and weight from twenty -four to 
thirty pounds. 
The wild Swan differs from the mute or tame Swan, 
according to the “ Description of the Menagerie of the Zoo- 
logical Society of London published under the direction of the 
Institution” in having twelve ribs on each side, whilst the 
tame has but eleven. There is no protuberance on the bill 
as in the tame, and in the latter, the bill is of an orange red, 
with the exception of the edges, the protuberance on the 
top, a slight hook at the extremity, the nostrils and the 
naked spaces extending from the base towards the eyes — 
all of which are black. The mute, carries the neck more 
curved than the other, and the windpipe passes into the 
lungs without any of the singular convolution presently to 
be described. Buffon strangely remarks, that this difference 
in the internal structure may be the result of domestication. 
This would be an astonishing effect produced by association 
with man, that the credulity of the times even of that writer, 
could hardly believe, still less, in these days of science and 
discovery. 
Linne says the Wild Swan (A. cygnus ferus ) has eleven 
on each side, and the tame twelve, which is the reverse of 
the above description. Pennant also gives twelve for the 
wild bird I have not had an opportunity of ascertaining the 
number in our own Swan. 
The wild Swan of England, and that of America, have 
been till lately considered by naturalists as identical, and 
consisting of but one species. Mr. Yarrell, evidently a close 
observer of nature, in a paper published in the Linnaean 
Transactions of London, has asserted the existence of two 
distinct species in the English wild Swan, and supposes 
there is also the same in America. His new species, he calls 
after the celebrated naturalist Bewick [Cygnus bewickii), 
and says, it differs from the Hooper or the common 
kind, in having the bare space around and before the 
eyes, and over the front of the forehead to the extent of 3-4 
of an inch, orange yellow — bill narrow at the middle and di- 
latedatthe point — eyes, orange-yellow — tail havingeighteen 
feaihers, whole length three feet nine inches and weighing but 
fourteen pounds; whilst in the Hooper, the bare space is yel- 
low — eyes brown — sidesof bill parallel — tail having twenty 
feathers, whole length five feet and weighing twenty pounds. 
The greatest difference however, consists in the arrangement 
of the trachea or windpipe in the sternum or breast bone. 
This writer says, in the Hooper, the windpipe after pass- 
ing down the neck, continues on and enters a chamber 
formed between the two plates of the keel of the bone, and 
after running to the depth of three inches in a bone of eight 
and a half inches in length, folds on itself, always retaining 
the vertical position in its doubling, and returns out at the 
same orifice it entered the keel, and winding round the 
merry-thought, (os furcatorium), takes the regular route 
to the lungs. 
In his Bewick’s Swan, a similar cavity is formed in the 
keel for the windpipe, but it continues back through 
the whole length of the keel, and into the body of the 
sternum and forms a horizontal cavity there, whilst in the 
keel, the greatest diameter of the chamber is vertical. This 
posterior sack, is formed by the separation of the upper and 
lower plates of the “posterior or flattened portion of the breast 
bone, and producing a convex protuberance on the inner sur- 
face.” Into this posterior sack, the windpipe enters after 
traversing the whole length of the cavity in the keel, and its 
duplication changes from the vertical to the horizontal posi- 
tion, the loop occupying this round bony bag. In a bone 
six 3-8 inches in length, the depth of the whole cavity was 
five 3-4 inches, showing an immense anatomical difference 
between this Swan and the Hooper. In the oldest Hooper, 
the cavity never extended in the slightest degree, farther 
back than the keel, and the fold of the pipe never left the 
vertical position at any age ; whilst in the Bewick, in the 
