230 
NATURAL HISTORY 
possibly exceed it for beauty and grandeur. When it 
ascends from its favourite element, its motions. are awk- 
ward, and its neck is stretched forward with an air of 
stupidity; but when seen smoothly sailing along the wa- 
ter, commanding a thousand graceful attitudes, and 
moving at pleasure without the smallest effort, there is 
not a more beautiful figure in all nature. In the exhibi- 
tion of its form, there are no broken or harsh lines; no 
constrained or catching motions; but the soundest con- 
tours, and the easiest transitions; the eye wanders over 
every part with insatiable pleasure, and every part takes 
a new grace with a new motion. It will swim faster than 
a man can walk. 
This bird has long been rendered domestic; and it is 
now a doubt whether there be any of the kind in a 
state of nature. The colour of the tame swan is entirely 
white, and it generally weighs full twenty pounds. The 
windpipe sinks down into the lungs in the ordinary 
manner; and it is the most silent of all the feathered 
tribes: it can do nothing more than hiss, which it does 
on receiving any provocation. In these respects it is 
very different from the wild or whistling swan. 
This beautiful bird is as delicate in its appetites, as 
elegant in its form. Its chief food is corn, bread, herbs 
growing in the water, and roots and seeds, which are 
found near the margin. At the time of incubation it 
prepares a nest in some retired part of the bank, and 
chiefly where there is an islet in the stream. This is 
composed of water-plants, long grass, and sticks; and 
the male and female assist in forming it with great as- 
siduity. The swan lays seven or eight eggs, white, one 
per day, much larger than those of a goose, with a hard, 
and sometimes a tuberous shell. It sits near two months 
before its young are excluded; which are ash coloured 
when they first leave the shell, and for some months after. 
It is not a little dangerous to approach the old ones, when 
their little family are feeding round them. Their fears, 
as well as their pride, seem to take the alarm, and when 
