ANAS. 
are all a clean-plumaged beautiful race of 
birds, and some of them exquisitely so. Those 
which have been reclaimed from a state of 
nature, and live dependant on man, are 
extremely useful to him : under his protec- 
tion they breed in great abundance, and, 
without requiring much of his time and care, 
lead their young to the pool, almost as soon 
as hatched, where they instantly, with in- 
stinctive perception, begin to search for 
their food, which at first consists chiefly of 
weeds, worms, and insects ; those they sift, 
as it were, from the mud, and for that pur- 
pose their bills are admirably adapted. 
When they are farther advanced in life, they 
pick up the sodden scattered grain of the 
farm-yard, which, but for their assiduous 
searchings, would be lost. To them also 
are allotted the larger quantities of corn 
which are shaken by the winds from the 
over-ripened ears in the fields. On this 
clean and simple food they soon become fat, 
and their flesh is accounted delicious and 
nourishing. In a wild state, birds of vari- 
ous kinds preserve their original plumage ; 
but when tamed, they soon begin to vary, 
and shew the effects of domestication : this 
is the case with the tame goose and the 
duck, which differ as much from the wild of 
their respective kinds, as they do from each 
other. We shall notice the following, as 
among the most interesting of the species. / 
Anas Cygnus Ferus, the wild swan, mea- 
sures five feet in length, and above seven 
in breadth, and weighs from thirteen to six- 
teen pounds. The bill is three inches long, 
of a yellowish white ; from the base to the 
middle, and thence to the tip, black ; the 
bare space from the bill over the eye and 
eye-lids is yellow' : the whole plumage in 
adult birds is of a pure white, and, next to 
the skin, they are cloathed with a thick 
fine down : tiie legs are black. This spe- 
cies generally keeps together in small flocks, 
or families, except in the pairing season, 
and at the setting in of winter. At the lat- 
ter period they assemble in immense multi- 
tudes, particularly on the large rivers and 
lakes of the thinly-inhabited northern parts 
of Europe, Asia, and America: but when 
the extremity of the weather threatens to 
become insupportable, in order to shun the 
gathering storm they shape their course high 
in air, in divided and diminished numbers, 
in search of milder climates. In such sea- 
sons they are most commonly seen in va- 
rious parts of the British isles, and in other 
more southern countries of Europe. The 
same is observed of them in the North Ame- 
rican states. They do not, however, re- 
main longer than till the approach of the 
spring, when they again retire northward 
to the arctic regions to breed. A few, in- 
deed drop short, and perform that otfice by 
the way, for they are knowm to breed in 
some of the Hebrides, the Orkney, Shet- 
land, and other solitary isles ; but these are 
hardly worth notice : the great bodies of 
them are met with in the large rivers and 
lakes near Hudson's Bay, and those of 
Kamtschatka, Lapland, and Iceland. They 
are said to return to the latter place in 
flocks of about a hundred at a time in the 
spring, and also to pour in upon that island 
from the north, in nearly the same manner, 
on their way southward, in the autumn. 
The young which are bred there remain 
throughout the first year ; and in August, 
when they are in moult, and unable to fly, 
the natives taking advantage of this, kill 
them with clubs, shoot, and hunt them down 
with dogs, by which they are easily caught. 
The flesh is highly esteemed by them as a 
delicious food, as are also the eggs, which 
are gathered in the spring. The Icelanders, 
Kamtscatdales, and other natives of the 
northern world, dress their skins with the 
down on, sew them together, and make 
them into garments of various kinds : the 
northern American Indians do the same, 
and sometimes weave the down as barbers 
weave the cauls for wigs, and then manu- 
facture it into ornamental dresses for the 
women of rank, while the larger feathers 
are formed into caps and plumes to deco- 
rate the heads of their chiefs and warriors. 
They also gather the feathers and down in 
large quantities, and barter or sell them to 
the inhabitants of more civilized nations. 
Much has been said of the singing of the 
swan, in ancient times, and many beauti- 
ful and poetical descriptions have been 
given of its dying song. No fiction of 
natural history, no fable of antiquity, was 
ever more celebrated, often repeated, or 
better received: it occupied the soft and 
lively imagination of the Greeks ; poets, 
orators, and even philosophers, adopted it as 
a truth too pleasing to be doubted. The 
dull insipid truth, however, is very differ- 
ent from such amiable and affecting fables, 
for the voice of the swan, singly, is shrill, 
piercing, and harsh, not unlike the sound of 
a clarionet when blown by a novice in mu- 
sic. It is, nevertheless, asserted by those who 
have heard the united and varied voices of 
a numerous assemblage of them, that they . 
produce a more harmonious effect, particu- 
