BEWICK'S SWAN.
Cygnus Bewiciii, YARRELL. SBLBV.
" " JENYNS. EYTON. GOULD.
Cygnus—A Swan. Bewickii—Of Bewick.
THE Swan thus denominated in honour of Bewick, our own Bewick,
whose name must ever be associated with 'British Birds,' appears to
be distributed over the northern parts of Europe, Asia, and America,
and the islands of the Arctic Ocean. Temminck says that it breeds
in Iceland and Siberia.
In Yorkshire, Edward Dawson, Esq., son of my friend, G. P .
Dawson, Esq., of Osgodbv Hall, near Sclby, has informed me of his
having shot three of these birds at a shot on Skipwith Common,
about the 14th. of February, 1855. There was a flock of five, the
other two were the old birds. One was shot near Bawtry; several
have occurred at different times near Burlington. Others near York;
one near Ffunborough, February 20th., 18G9, noticed by Mr. J. H .
Gurnev.
I n Cambridgeshire, so J . E . Little, Esq., of St. John's College, has
written me word, a flock of twenty was seen on Whittlesca Wash,
about the middle of March, 185-3, of which three were shot. A few
near Wisbeach, on the estuary of the Nene, in the middle of December,
1849. In the county of Durham, one was shot near Stockton-on-
Tees, in the winter of 1850. Six are said to have been seen in January,
1830, near St. J u s t , in Cornwall. In March, 1845, three were shot
near Somersham, and three near Godmanehester, in the county of
Huntingdon. In Norfolk they are not unfrequcnt in the neighbourhood
of the sea, in winter. In Oxfordshire two near Oxford, in the
winter of I 8 0 T - 8 . In Derbyshire a flock of eleven appeared on the
Trent, near Melbourne, in February, 1845, and two of them were
shot. In Lancashire a flock of twenty-nine, one of which was shot
at Middleton, were observed at Crumpsall, near Manchester, on the