_Cygnus musicus_, the Whooper, which used to breed in Orkney, and ranges from Iceland through Arctic Europe and Asia, migrating to the Mediterranean, Nepal, China, and Japan, and straying to Greenland, is white with black feet and bill, the basal half of the latter being yellow, while that colour extends still further on the sides. The flight is accompanied by a rushing sound, the note is trumpet-like or whistling, the food consists of aquatic plants, the five or more white eggs are laid upon a pile of herbage near water. The smaller _C. bewicki_, where the yellow on the bill does not reach the nostrils, inhabits the Arctic districts from the White Sea to the Pacific, wandering in winter to Britain, the Mediterranean, South Siberia, China, and Japan. _C. columbianus_ of North America, said to have occurred in Scotland, has merely a yellow spot before the eye; _C. buccinator_, of the interior of North America, has a black bill; while _C. olor_, the Mute or Tame Swan, with its variety the Polish Swan, has the fore-part of it orange. _C. olor_ ranges from South Sweden and Denmark through Central Europe and Asia, migrating a little southwards. _C. melanocoryphus_, reaching from South Brazil and Chili to Patagonia and the Falklands, has the head and two-thirds of the neck black, with white eye-streak; the bill is plumbeous with red base and knob, the feet are pinkish. The protuberance is wanting in the young, which are marked with rusty, and have the head brown. Of other species immature birds are greyish or dusky, with flesh-coloured {136}and black beak, except in _C. olor_, where it is plumbeous. In habits Swans are much alike, though the notes differ somewhat, and the Mute Swan merely hisses or croaks in captivity; the latter and the Black Swan are noted for the graceful curve of the neck and their greenish eggs; while the wing-feathers and scapulars are habitually puffed out when on the water. Swans were "Royal Birds" in mediaeval England, and a licence was necessary to keep them, but for this subject and that of the "Swan-marks" on the bill, as well as for accounts of decoys, hybrids, and domestic races in the Family, the reader must be referred to the works of Professor Newton,[119] Count Salvadori,[120] and other authors. [Illustration: FIG. 36.–Bewick's Swan. _Cygnus bewicki._ × ⅒.]