AMERICAN SWAN. 
231 
exceedingly anxious to pass the larger, and as they doubled the point at 
about sixty yards distance, the three formed with the second bird of the 
larger flock, a square of probably less than three feet. At this moment 
both guns were discharged, and three Swans were killed, and the fourth so 
much injured that he left the flock and reached the water a short distance 
in the bay ; but it being nearly dark his direction was lost. These, with 
another that had been killed within an hour, and three which were subse- 
quently obtained, were all of less than five years of age, and averaged a 
weight of eighteen pounds. 
“ The Swans never leave the open shores of the bay for the side streams, 
and the Geese rarely through the day, though they often retire to the little 
inlets to roost or feed at night. Few of these large game are found after 
their regular settlement, above Spesutie Island, but lay on the flats in 
mingled masses of from fifty to five hundred, down the western shores, even 
as far as the Potomac. During a still night, a few Swans may often be 
seen asleep in the middle of the bay, surrounded by a group of far more 
watchful Geese ; and the writer has paddled at day-break one morning 
within ten feet of an enormous sleeping Swan, who had probably depended 
for alarm on the wary Geese, by which he had been surrounded, but which, 
as we approached, had swam away. By an unforeseen occurrence, when a 
few seconds would have enabled us to have stunned him by a blow, he be- 
came alarmed, and started in a direction that prevented a probable chamce 
of killing, from our position, and the tottering nature of the skiff.” 
Amebican Wild Swan, Cygnus americanus, Sharpless, Atner. Journ. of Sc. and 
Arts, vol. xxii. 
American Swan, Cygnus americanus, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. v. p. 133. 
Male, 53, 84. 
Common during winter in the Middle Atlantic Districts, especially on 
Chesapeake Bay. Not seen south of Carolina. Columbia river, breeds 
in the Fur Countries. 
Adult Male. 
Bill rather longer than the head, large, higher than broad at the base, 
gradually becoming more depressed. Upper mandible with the dorsal line 
concave at the commencement, then descending and very slightly convex to 
beyond the nostrils, at the end decurved ; the ridge broad and flat at the 
base, gradually narrowed, convex toward the end; the sides nearly erect and 
somewhat concave at the base, gradually sloping, and towards the end convex, 
the margins nearly parallel until toward the end, when they widen a little ; 
the tip rather abruptly rounded, the unguis truncato-obovate. Nostril 
