BLACK SWAN. 
It would seem that Willem de Vlaming’s ship was the one indicated in 
Witsen’s letter, and that the date 1695 should be 1698 as Gould suggested. 
Such a large, attractive and edible bird would compel an extensive 
literature, and I would simply note a couple of the earlier notes not 
commonly accessible. Thus Vancouver, in his Voy. Disc. North Pacific 
Ocean, Vol. I,, 1798, has written, p. 38 : “ Oct. 7, 1791. King George’s 
Sound, West Australia. Our attention was directed to several large Black 
Swans in very stately attitudes swimming on the water, and, when flying, 
discovering the under-parts of their wings and breast to be white : this 
is all the deseription we were enabled to give of them, since they were 
excessively shy, and we very indifferent marksmen. ... On its (a rivulet) 
banlis were many Black Swans (p. 52). Of the waterfowl, the 
Black Swan seemed as numerous as any other species of aquatic birds 
in the neighbourhood of Oyster Harbour (King George’s Sound), but they 
were seen in no other place.” 
In Labillardiere’s account of the Voyage in Search of La Perouse, 
Eng. ed., p. 173, 1800, we find that in April, 1792, they met with at 
D’Entrecasteaux Port: “A bird that was shot upon one of the lakes 
surprised us very much by the singularity of its plumage. It was a new 
species of the swan, of the same beautiful form, but rather larger than ours. 
Its colour was a shining black, as striking in its appearance as the clear white 
of ours. In each of its wings it had six large white feathers ; a character 
which I have uniformly remarked in several others that were afterwards 
kflled. The upper mandible was of a red colour, with a transverse white 
streak near the extremity. The male had at the base of it an excrescence 
consisting of two protuberances, that were scarcely observable in the female. 
The lower mandible is red at the edges and white in the middle. The feet 
are of a dark grey (see Plate ix.).” 
Numerous notes regarding these birds occur throughout Flinders’ 
Voyage, and some of the more interesting may be here quoted^ Thus, 
in the Introduction, p. clvi., under date Nov. 10, 1798, with regard 
to Flinders and Bass’s expedition to Bass Straits is written : “ On the 
east, or lee side of this point and shoal was a flock of swans, in number 
not less than from three to five hundred ; and their cast quills were so 
intermixed with the sand as to form a component part of the beach. 
This countless number of quills gave me an insight into the cause why 
so many of the swans, though not young birds, were unable to fly ; they 
moult their wing feathers, probably at stated periods, though not, I should 
think, every year. This sandy projection was named Swan Point. On 
steering southward from thence, I found that the bight in which this great 
15 
