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ORD. III. GENUS IX. SWAN. Bill, arched above, flat beneath, finifhing with a nail at the end forming a fmall hook, and edged with teeth. Nostrils, oval, and fltuate under the arch of the bill, at a difiance from the head. Tongue, broad, flat, indented at the edges, and flcfhy. Toes, three before, united by a broad web; hind toe fmall. SPECIES I. WHISTLING SWAN. PI. 237. Anas Cygnus ferus. Lin. Syjl. I. p. 194. Le Cygne fauvage. Brif Orn. VI p. 292. The whiffling fwan, or hooper, as it is fometimes called from the noife it makes, weighs about fixteen pounds, is five feet in length, and feven in breadth. The neck is three feet long, and very llender. The end of the beak is black; the upper part of it, and the naked fpace between it and the eye, are of a pale orange colour, bounded above by a narrow fillet of black feathers: the eye-lids are yellow: eyes, grey brown : the whole of the plumage glofTy white : legs black. This bird is Angular in having a flexi ble joint about the middle of the upper mandible. This fpecies vifits the northern parts of Scotland in winter, and, if the cold be very fevere, fometimes proceeds to the fouthern parts of England. In 1788, I had the plea- fure of feeing thirty of thefe graceful majeftic birds alight in the water in the front of my houfe near Feverfham, in Kent. Their continuance was but fhort, as the loud and lhrill cry they made attra&ed at lead fifty men to purfue them, who fcarcely gave them time to wet their beaks. By this faculty of uttering a loud cry it is ftrikingly diftin- guifhed from the tame, or mute fwan, which is capable of nothing more than a hifs, ora flight cackle. This is fuppofed to be owing to the difference in their windpipes; that of the whittling fwan being refledted back again, like the tube of a trumpet, after it has entered the chert a little way, and dividing into two branches, to join the lungs, after it has en tered the chert a fecond time. The food of this fpecies conrtrts principally of herbs, which its toothed bill is well adapted for cutting. It breeds chiefly in the more northern parts of Europe, though a few make their nefts on the iflets in the frefh-water lakes of fome of the Orkney Ifles. For the egg fee PI. LI.