220 
TRUMPETER SWAN. 
Townsend corroborates the observations of the two .eminent travellers by 
stating, that the latter species is much more numerous than the large C. 
Buccinator. 
The Trumpeter Swans make their appearance on the lower portions of the 
waters of the Ohio about the end of October. They throw themselves at 
once into the larger ponds or lakes at no great distance from the river, giving 
a marked preference to those which are closely surrounded by dense and tall 
cane-brakes, and there remain until the water is closed by ice, when they 
are forced to proceed southward. During mild winters I have seen Swans 
of this species in the ponds about Henderson until the beginning of March, 
but only a few individuals, which may have staid there to recover from their 
wounds. When the cold became intense, most of those which visited the 
Ohio would remove to the Mississippi, and proceed down that stream as the 
severity of the weather increased, or return if it diminished ; for it has 
appeared to me, that neither very intense cold nor great heat suit them so 
well as a medium temperature. I have traced the winter migrations of this 
species as far southward as Texas, where it is abundant at times, and where 
I saw a pair of young ones in captivity, and quite domesticated, that had 
been procured in the winter of 1836. They were about two years old, and 
pure white, although of much smaller size than even the younger one repre- 
sented in the plate before you, having perhaps been stinted in food, or having 
suffered from their wounds, as both had been shot. The sound of their well- 
known notes reminded me of the days of my youth, when I was half-yearly 
in the company of birds of this species. 
At New Orleans, where I made the drawing of the young bird here given, 
the Trumpeters are frequently exposed for sale in the markets, being 
procured on the ponds of the interior, and on the great lakes leading to the 
waters of the Gulf of Mexico. This species is unknown to my friend, the 
Rev. John Bachman, who, during a residence of twenty years in South 
Carolina, never saw or heard of one there ; whereas in hard winters the 
Cygnus Americanus is not uncommon, although it does not often proceed 
farther southward than that State. The waters of the Arkansas and its 
tributaries are annually supplied with Trumpeter Swans, and the largest 
individual which I have examined was shot on a lake near the junction of 
that river with the Mississippi. It measured nearly ten feet in alar extent, 
and weighed above thirty-eight pounds. The quills, which 1 used in drawing 
the feet and claws of many small birds, were so hard, and yet so elastic, that 
the best steel-pen of the present day might have blushed, if it could, to be 
compared with them. 
Whilst encamped in the Tawapatee Bottom, when on a fur-trading voyage, 
our keel-boat was hauled close under the eastern shore of the Mississippi, 
i 
