ITS HABITS are apparently much those of the Common Swan,
though it feeds more, and moves about with greater ease, on
land, but it is distinguishable from this at great distances by its •
loud and musical call, which I have often heard at home, and
which, though much resembling the word " hoop," " hoop,"
repeated many times, has, when uttered by a large flock of birds
of different sexes and ages, and mellowed by the winds and
waves, a really fine effect.
These Swans are, I fancy, chiefly vegetarians, feeding mostly
upon herbs, and their seeds and sometimes flowers, weeds and
grasses.
On the whole, this species seems a more northern bird than the
Mute Swan, their average distribution being, I think, more northerly.
Not only do they live and breed further north, but fewer
of them go far south, and the bulk of the species do not, except
in excessively severe winters, go anything like as far south as
does C. olor.
THEY BREED as far north as south Greenland, Iceland, and
the more northerly portions of Europe and Asia, and it is
believed in Nova Zembla also, and southwards in both continents,
where sportsmen or dense population have not banished
them, to between the fortieth and fiftieth degrees of North
Latitude.
They build in similar situations to the last species, (but solitarily
and not in flocks,) a similar, but smaller and less massive
nest, and breed from May to July, according to locality, laying
from five to seven eggs.
The eggs are described as similar in shape to, but as averaging
slightly larger* (40 to 4'5 by 2'55 to 2-95,) than, those of the
Mute Swan, and they are said to be of an uniform, dull, very
pale, clingy buff, or buffy white, not unfrequently with a fair
amount of gloss.
OF COURSE we have no measurements of Indian birds.
The following are the dimensions of an adult male and adult
female, recorded in England :—
Male.—Length, 60 ; expanse, 95 ; wing, 2575 ; tail, 7'5 ;
bill along culmen, including bare space on forehead, 4'25 ; from
tip to eye, 5 1 6 ; tarsus, 4'i6 ; weight, 19 lbs.
Female.-—Length, 52 ; expanse, 85 ; wing, 23'5 ; tail, 7'5 ;
bill, as above, 4'5 ; to eye, 484 ; tarsus, 4 0 ; weight, 16-5 lbs.
The dimensions of this species vary a great deal, and fullplumaged
Hoopers are said to range in weight from 13 lbs.
to 21 lbs.
The bare space on the forehead and in front of the eyes, and
the basal portion of the bill, is yellowish to bright yellow ; the
* They do average, I believe, larger than the eggs of the domesticated olor, but
not I think than those of the wild birds.
THE HOOPER. 49
nail and the tip of the bill is black, the black extending upwards
as a point along the culmen to within perhaps one inch of the
margin of the frontal feathers, while the yellow extends
forward along the sides of the upper mandible to within,
perhaps, one and a half inches of the point, the two colors
meeting in a slanting line on either side of the bill. Part of the
base of the lower mandible and the space between the rami
yellow ; the rest of the lower mandible, black; the iris is brown ;
the feet and claws black.
THE PLATE, (the left hand figure,) conveys a sufficiently accurate
idea of the adult of this species, but the neck is somewhat too
long and too gracefully curved. In this species the bird usually
holds the neck comparatively stiffly and straight.
A young bird killed in March measured 44 inches In length
and weighed 825 lbs. The basal portions of the bill were flesh
colour instead of yellow ; the irides dusky; the feet greyish dusky,
with a reddish tinge ; the feathers on the forehead and before the
eyes dull orange ; the rest of the head and upper neck behind
brown ; the underparts white, tinged with rufous ; the lower
neck behind, and the rest of the upper parts not already
mentioned, ashy grey.
BOTH THE Hooper and Bewick's Swan are, as already noticed,
at once distinguished from the Mute Swan by their comparatively
short and rounded (not wedge-shaped) tails.
The two former species differ, birds of the same sex and age
being compared, in the greatly superior size of the Hooper.
But young female Hoopers are decidedly smaller than old
male Bewick's Swans, so that it will not do to depend blindly
on dimensions, without carefully considering the sex and
apparent age of the specimen examined, and the surest external
diagnosis consists in the far greater amount and somewhat
different distribution of the black on the bills of Bewick's bird,
which is shown in the plates and fully explained in describing
the colours of the soft parts of each species. I may add
that in the Hooper the frontal feathers are prolonged into an
angle, while in Bewick's Swan they terminate in a semicircle.
The internal distinctions, first pointed out by Yarrell, in the
different arrangement of the wind-pipe, &c, are even more
conspicuous, but do not fall within the scope of a work like the
present,