Swan
in ornithology, any individual of the genus Cygnus. The swans form a sharply-defined group; the body is elon- BLACK SWAN and placed far back. On the under sur- beak about as long as head; legs short, and placed far back. On the under surface the plumage is thick and fur like; on the upper side the feathers are broad, but both above and below the body is thickly covered with down. Their short legs render the movements on land awkward and ungainly, but in the water these birds are graceful to a proverb. Their food consists of vegetable substances and weeds, their long necks enabling them food at considerable depths. Swans breed in high latitudes, but the domesticated breeds on eyots and the shores of lakes, making a very large nest on land, in which five or six greenish eggs are deposited. The young generally are covered with a gray down till the age of two years, when they assume the characteristic white plumage of the older birds. Three other species visit temperate Europe: the elk, hooper, whooper, or whistling swan (C. musicus); Bewick's swan (C. bewicki), and the Polish swan (C. immutabilis), which owes its specific name to the fact that the cygnets are (C. immutabilis), which owes its specific pure white like the parent birds. The mute swan is the largest and most ma- pure white like the parent birds. The WHISTLING SWAN jestic of the four, and is easily recognized by the black knob at the base of the bill.
There are some other species, chiefly from North America, but the most beautiful There are some other species, chiefly from first taken to other countries early in ica; while the most remarkable is the essence of a swan, that a "black swan" black swan (C. atratus), from Australia, ancients that white plumage was of the essence of a swan, that a "black swan" was a proverbial expression for something extremely rare. The stories about the musical voice of the swan appear to have some foundation in fact so far as astronomy, the constellation CYGNUS (q. regards the whooper (C. musicus). In v.). Figuratively applied to a famous poet; thus Shakespeare is called the Swan of Avon, Vergil the Swan of Mantua. known as the "Swan River Settlement.' Australia, which colony was originally Fr