Photo by the Duchess of Bedford] [Woburn Abbey.
TRUMPETER- AND WHOOPER-SWANS.
The trumpeter is the bird in the foreground; the whooper is remarkable for its musical note, resembling the word "whoop" quickly repeated.
The Swans are linked with the Geese through a very beautiful South American species, known as the Coscoroba Swan. It is the smallest of all the swans, pure white in colour, save the tips of the greater wing-quills, which are black, and the coral-red bill and feet.
Of all the swans, probably the best known is the Mute Swan, the semi-domesticated descendants of which are so common on ornamental waters. For hundreds of years the latter were jealously guarded, none but the larger freeholders being allowed to keep them, and then not without a licence from the Crown; with this licence was coupled an obligation to mark each swan with a particular mark, cut with a knife or other instrument through the skin of the beak, whereby ownership might be established.
It would seem that these swans and their descendants were not derived from the native wild stock, but were introduced into England, it is said, from Cyprus by Richard I. At the present day large "swanneries" have almost ceased to exist. Perhaps the largest is that of the Earl of Ilchester, at Abbotsbury, near Weymouth. In 1878 between 1,300 and 1,400 swans were to be seen there at one time, but latterly the number has been reduced to about half.
Although swans do not perhaps stand so high in the general esteem as table delicacies as with our forefathers, there are yet many who appreciate the flesh of this bird; but the St. Helen's Swan-pit at Norwich is the only place in England where they are systematically fattened for the table. Here from 70 to 200 cygnets—as the young swans are called—caught in the neighbouring rivers, are placed early in August, and fed upon cut grass and barley till Christmas, when they are fit for table, weighing, when "dressed," about 15 lbs., and fetching, if purchased alive at the pit, about two guineas each. The pit is constructed of brickwork, and is about 74 feet long, 32 feet wide, and 6 feet deep—the water, admitted from the river, being about 2 feet deep. The food is placed in floating troughs. The birds, "when so disposed," says Mr. Southwell, "leave the water by walking up a sloping stage, and thus obtain access to a railed-in enclosure, where they may rest and preen themselves."
The beautiful swan-like carriage, so familiar in the floating bird, seems to belong only to the mute swan, the other species of white swans carrying the neck more or less straight, and keeping the wings closely folded to the body.
No greater anomaly could at one time have been imagined than a Black Swan. For centuries it was considered to be an impossibility. We owe the discovery of such a bird to the Dutch navigator Willem de Vlaming, who, more than 200 years ago, captured the first specimen at the mouth of what is now known, in consequence, as the Swan River. A year after their capture accounts reached England through the burgomaster of Amsterdam, and these were published by the Royal Society in 1698. The bird is now fairly common on ornamental waters, where its sooty-black plumage, set off by pure white quill-feathers and coral-red bill, contrasts strongly with the typical snow-white mute swan, generally kept with it.