Ph aaa Se NATURAL HISTORY 
ANAS: CYGNUS. 
Toe ee WEA ON, 
"The Swan has a black, callous knob at the bail 
ef his bill; when he grows old, his feathers be. | 
come white. Swans lay feven or eight eggs; they | 
are two months in hatching. They feed on wa- 
ter-plants and infects ; and will fometimes eat 
grain, if it be given them. Some people formerly 
were fo filly, as to imagine that they always fang 
juft before they died; but this is quite a miftake, 
for the tame fwans feldom make any noife at all, 
When they are going to lay, they fix upon a 
lonely bank, or an ifland; and there make their 
neft, of water-plants, long grafs, and fticks; the 
male and the female both help. When they have 
hatched, it is not very fafe to go near them; for 
their pinions, or wings, are fo ftrong, and ad they 
can ftrike fuch a blow with them, as would break 
an arm or a leg. ee 
The Swan’s neck is very long, and he is amoft 
elegant and majeftic bird when he is fwimming, 
Many of them are to be found upon the falt water 
creek, or inlet, at Abbotfbury, in Dorfetthire; 
and.upon the river Trent, and on the ‘Thames. — 
‘They are faid to live two or three hundred years. 
The 

