8 
WARD’S NATURAL SCIENCE BULLETIN. 
THE BLACK SWAN. 
“Here (Southern Australia), among the beautiful 
Gyppsland lakes, I formed a new and unexpected 
acquaintance, who has sinoe become a warm and 
valued friend. I had already heard of an Englishman 
of exceptionally high character and unusual mental 
gifts, who was living quite a hermit life in the seclu- 
sion of the forest. Humor— which I subsequently in 
great part confirmed,— had it that he was ouce wealthy 
and influential in his English country. But for rea- 
sons which his own heart knows he suddenly left his 
home and estates and buried himself in the Australian 
wilds, giving his life to solitude and nature. I visited 
him one May day at his cabin in a Eucalyptus grove 
on a fiat promontory which had a lovely lake on either 
side. I found a man of about forty-five years; of 
pleasant, impressive features and a refinement of 
voice and action which spake true gentility. He had 
lived there in his little cabin for about twenty years, 
with simple comforts of life, with distant neighbors 
and few visitors, finding his solace In a small library 
of classical authors and still more with his dog and 
gun. * * * * Many a delightful hunting excursion 
did we make together. He is a zealous student of 
nature, enthusiastic in his search, yet careful and 
accurate. * * * * He promised to write familiar 
descriptions of Australian animals— Beast and Bird,— 
for our Bulletin.”— Extract from a letter of Prof. 
Ward. 
“ Bara avis, in terris, nigroquesimilima cygne."— Ovid. 
“ In these piping times of peace,” and acclima- 
tion enterprises the bird which is so “very like 
unto a Black Swan,” that it has long passed for 
such under the generic title of Chenopis atrata 
has so frequently been transported across the 
rolling seas which separate its sunny home in 
the Southern Hemisphere, from the countries of 
the northern one, that its appearance now, in the 
latter portion of the globe, must have entirely 
lost the phenomenal character attached to it in 
the day when the Salmonian Bard lived and sang. 
But however rare a bird the Black Swan may 
even yet be in many parts of the world, it is cer- 
tainly anything but such on most of the bays, 
inlets, lakes, lagunes and swamps of the Colony 
of Victoria; on the Gyppsland lakes, for instance, 
where I now write, it is, in a numerical sense, 
the commonest aquatic bird we have, and at the 
same time the most ornamental. In the more 
unfrequented parts; — serenely sailing or feeding 
along the Ti tree shores, reposing on the surface 
of the water with head reclined on back of wing, 
standing at ease in long flies on the sandy flats 
like platoons of Black Infantry, and anon flying 
over the lake with elongated neck and flashing 
wing; in every variety of number and form this 
beautiful bird may here be seen in its native ele- 
ments, and here, as elsewhere, its presence adds 
life and picturesqueness to the view. It must be 
understood that it is only when sailing on the 
water, that this swan appears entirely black; 
soon as it extends its wings for flight, it will 
then appear that their extremities are snow 
white, the first eighteen pen feathers being en- 
tirely so, but part of them are half hidden by the 
black coverts, thus when flying low or against 
any dark background, the flash of this white 
portion of the wing may frequently be seen at dis- 
tances that render the’ bird itself entirely indis- 
tinguishable. The breeding season of the Black 
Swan, may, generally speaking, be said to range 
from May to October; the precise time of laying, 
however, varies according to season and conveni- 
ence. In a wet season the birds in these lakes 
lay early and plentifully; in a moderately dry 
one, later, and if, as sometimes happen, hardly 
any rain falls during the breeding period, the 
great majority will not lay at all, literally defer- 
ring their family duty to a more convenient 
season. They appear to be greatly guided by the 
water level, which, to suit them, ought to be of 
just sufficient height to flood round, without 
actually flooding, their nests. These are built on 
the small Ti tree islands, and in belts of the Ti tree 
scrub and samphire flat, bordering some little bay, 
inlet, or obscure channel, and in the large rushy 
swamps adjoining the lakes, — anywhere, in fact, 
that the parent bird often too vainly imagine to 
be sufficiently secluded and free from molestation. 
The nest itself is a large conical shaped pile, gen- 
erally from three to four feet in height, and about 
twelve feet in circumference at the base. It is al- 
ways built of the material nearest at hand; if in a 
Ti tree scrub, it will be composed of fallen Ti tree 
sticks; in a swamp, of dried grass or rushes, and 
if placed on an open samphire flat, of the lake 
weed on which these birds principally feed, and 
which they pull up in vast quantities. On the 
flattened apex of the pile a hollow is made about 
the size of an ordinary washing bowl, in which 
the eggs, six in number, are deposited. The 
average size of these eggs is 4J inches in length, 
2f inches in diameter, and 8-J inches in circum- 
ference; their color appears to be indifferently of 
a dirty white or a pale blue tint. They are 
capital eating, their flavor being quite as delicate 
if not more so, than that of the common domestic 
duck; hence they are greatly sought after, spite 
of the illegality of the procedure. As soon as 
the female Swan begins to sit — but never before, 
— she lines the nest with down; so that when the 
Black Swan Hopper comes across a nest, he 
knows at a glance, by the absence or presence of 
the down, whether the eggs, if any, are fresh or 
not. But the poor Black Swans have other 
enemies to contend with during the breeding 
time, besides the inveterate one belonging to the 
genus homo. The crows, and smaller hawks, will 
often pick holes in their eggs and devour the 
contents, and even after the cygnets are hatched, 
they frequently become the prey of the large 
White Fishing Eagle, Swamp Hawk, &c. It is 
therefore a rare thing to see more than four cygnets 
following in the wake of the parent birds; far of- 
tener only a couple are here and there preserved 
through the perilous period of cygnancy. 
After the breeding season is over, follows 
another time of danger to the Black Swan: I 
allude to the moulting season. This may be said 
to range from December to March, when many 
of these birds lose by degrees the pen feathers of 
their wings, and consequently, until Nature re- 
places them, cannot fly at all, or but for short 
distances. I say many only, for, as during every 
breeding period, you will always see numbers of 
swans mobbing together in the open lakes, that 
evidently are not breeders, so also throughout the 
moulting time ; it is always the minority and not 
the majority of the Swans, that appear to be thus 
affected. I therefore come to the conclusion that 
both the breeding and moulting, to the extent of 
losing their wing feathers, of apparently adult 
birds of this species, are periodical, and not 
annual; but what are the laws regulating this 
periodicity, I am quite unable to say. Certain it 
is however, that every year a number of these 
birds do moult, and lose for a time the use of 
their wings. When in this condition they used 
formerly to be often pulled down in boats for the 
sake of their down, but this being found to be of 
small marketable value, the practice has been 
generally discontinued as a trade. In these lakes, 
however, even now the blacks will at times sur- 
round a mob of moulters in canoes and, driving 
them to the end of a narrow lake or some other 
cal de sac, slaughter them wholesale for the sake 
of their feathers. Sailing down moulters, how- 
ever, so as to catch them alive is grand sport! 
Some years ago, when living in Westernport Bay, 
another favorite resort of the Black Swan, I was 
engaged in catching them in this manner for the 
Acclimatization Society, and then had a good 
opportunity to observe the artifices these moulters 
will resort to in order to evade capture. They 
know the advantage of the weather gauge in a 
sailing match, gs well as the oldest boatman that 
ever blew a cloud under a Sou’wester! When 
pressed they will double and twist and turn and 
return in a fashion that would do credit to the 
most cunning fox that ere yet foiled a hound. 
Consequently the tacking, wearing, running and 
jibing, the capture of a single moulter generally 
cost us, kept the game alive from beginning to 
end, and rendered the sport most exciting. It 
not unfrequently happened, on entering a bight 
or bay where we expected to find moulters, we 
would see one or more swans swimming about 
first in one direction and then in another, and 
then suddenly stopping, as much as to say, “You 
see what a fix we’re in! Why not come after 
one of us? ” With people green to the game the 
device might succeed, but if these birds carried 
their necks erect, we took no further notice of 
them, for v e knew by that token that they were 
no moulti rs and would only occupy us until the 
real moulb rs had all crept out of the bay. A 
sweep of the flats would generally discover 
these, swimming close to the shores of the 
bights, with necks outstretched and depressed to 
an angle of about 60°. As soon, however, as 
they had cleared the bight, they would all make 
for the deep and open water, and then of course 
our part in the play commenced. I have no 
space here to describe the details of a Swan 
hunt. Suffice it to say, that half flyer or no 
flyer, we generally managed in the long run to 
get the bird, in a beaten condition, under the lea 
of the boat, and then, before closing, one of us 
went into the bow, and as the boat shot along 
side the bird, endeavored to hook it by the neck 
by means of a crook of wire fastened to the end 
of a Ti tree pole. In moderate weather moderate 
skill would accomplish this; but in a strong 
breeze and a chopping sea, it is not quite so easy 
of execution, as in that case great care has to be 
taken in hooking the Swan, not to let the end of 
the pole foul any of the rigging of the boat or 
you may chance to lose hook and Swan, and per- 
haps get yourself dropped overboard into the 
bargain. Once captured, the Black Swan ap- 
parently submits to its fate with the stoicism and 
indifference of a Turk: with it the loss of liberty 
by no means entails the loss of appetite. I have 
known a bird half an hour after capture, and 
with its legs still tied, to demolish a plate of 
apple pie with evident gusto. This probably was 
an exceptional case; but as soon as their legs 
were untied, and they were turned into a pen 
prepared for the purpose, our captives, one and 
all, evinced a perfect willingness to partake of 
any hospitalities we were able to afford them. 
As it was an express condition that they should 
be well fed, we gave them plenty of barley, and 
their capacity for storing away this corn was 
limited only by the supply, which was at the 
rate of about 1 cwt. per week to every 10 birds. 
The note of the Black Swan is very melodious; 
on a still night the hooping of these birds — car- 
ried on and repeated from one to the other, — 
comes across the calm water of the lake in a con- 
stant stream of plaintive melody, forming to my 
mind, the most soothing lullaby a sleeping child, 
of any age, could possibly wish for. 
Taken in the aggregate, the Black Swan is un- 
doubtedly a graceful, docile, and ornamental 
bird ; nevertheless it lacks the breadth of beam, 
the swelling port, and haughty mien of its' 
white brother in the Northern Hemisphere, or at 
least such of that ilk as bear the “Black Cere,” 
and which I have seen airing their graces on the 
inland bosom of old Father Thames, under the 
special care and protection of the Corporation of 
the City of London. Its down is inferior to 
these, and so is its courage, for whereas the 
merest child may rob the nest of the former with 
perfect impunity, the spoliation of the nest of 
the latter is seldom accomplished without a con- 
test, and when the battle is waged on fair terms, 
i. e . : with Nature’s weapons only, the result is 
not always in favor of the spoiler, as sundry 
bruised arms and legs, and an occasional broken 
one have testified. Cygnus. 
A RARE ANIMAL. 
For the first time in the history of the estab- 
lishment we have succeeded in obtaining a full- 
grown male gorilla ( Troglodytes Gorilla), whose 
skin suited us as to its state of preservation. 
This has just been successfully mounted, and 
makes a very fine specimen every way consid- 
ered. The old fellow is seated lazily upon the 
horizontal limb of a tree, scowling darkly and 
looking off into an imaginary forest. The face 
was modeled after a cast in our possession which 
was taken from a dead gorilla in the flesh, and 
has enabled our taxidermist to reproduce the 
features and expression with striking accuracy. 
One of the most interesting features of this 
animal is the half human development of the 
nose, which is wholly wanting in the orang, and 
very slightly developed in the chimpanzee. The 
legs are proportionally longer than those of any 
other ape, and in size and length the small toes 
most nearly resemble those of man. The skin is 
everywhere coal black, the hair upon the extrem- 
itiesof the limbs is black, which faaes to dark 
grey on the arms, while the thighs and body are 
covered with a short and scanty growth of iron 
gray hair. Upon the top of the head only, the 
hair is reddish brown. 
This gorilla, of which we present a very good 
illustration, is much larger than an ordinary man, 
and must have weighed when living not less than 
two hundred and forty pounds. 
