but here the garb of the parrots, as if to be in keeping with the gloomy colour of the swans, was remarkably sombre, and there only wanted the melancholy toll of the bell-bird-Dil Boong of the natives, which seemed to be unknown in this spot-joined to the mournful aspect of the feathered bipeds, to make the funereal scene complete.

Many water-birds swam or waded about the arms and coves of the river; but the black swans alone were remarkable in point of number. Mr. Bass once made a rough calculation of three hundred swimming within the space of a quarter of a mile square; "ard heard the dying song of some scores-(that song so celebrated by the poets of former times, exactly resembled the creaking of a rusty sign on a windy day). Not more than twothirds of any of the flocks which they fell in with could fly; the rest could do no more than flap along upon the surface of the water, being either moulting or not yet come to their full feather and growth, which they require two years to attain. They swam and flapped alternately, and went along surprisingly fast. It was sometimes a long chase, but the boat generally tired them out. When in danger, and speed makes no part of their escape, they immerse their bodies so far, that the water makes a passage between their neck and back, and in this position they would frequently turn aside a heavy load of shot. They seemed to be endowed with much sagacity; in chase they soon learned the weakest point of their pursuers, and, instead of swimming directly from them, as they did at first, always endeavoured in the most artful manner to gain the wind, which could only be prevented by anticipating their movements, and by a dexterous management of the boat."

This last manœuvre of the persecuted swans looks very like the result of reflection, when contrasted with their actions before bitter experience had taught them to put their wit to their enemies, and may be added to the numerous instances on record, which prove that the reasoning faculty, as well as instinct, is possessed by animals, at least to a certain extent.

"This swan," continues our author," is said to feed upon fish, frogs, and water-slugs; but in the gizzards of many, that at different times, and in different places were examined by Mr. Bass, nothing ever appeared but small water-plants, mostly a kind of broad-leaved grass, and some little sand. To their affection for their young, he had seen some lamentable sacrifices; but of their fierceness, at least when opposed to man, or their great strength, he had seen no instance."

A pair of these birds were with great care brought alive to England in the Buffalo, which arrived at Spithead in May, 1801, and were given by Lieut. William Kent to Earl St. Vincent,

who presented them to Queen Charlotte, by whom they were sent to Frogmore. They were of different sexes; but the female, unfortunately, died in moulting, and the widower having recovered, together with his health, the complete use of his wings, which had not been cut, availed himself of the liberty he enjoyed, and was shot by a nobleman's gamekeeper as he was flying across the Thames.

In Van Diemen's Land, New South Wales, and New Holland, the black swans have generally been seen in herds of eight or nine, floating quietly on some lake or pool. When flushed they go off in a straight line, one behind the other; and when in full plumage, or not detained by parental affection, are difficult of approach, seldom suffering the sportsman to come within gun-shot. Their disposition seems to be mild, and they are no match for the violent temper of the mute swan Cygnus olor, as those who may think it worth while to look at our future sketch of that species will find.

Here then we must, for the present, take our leave, with an admonition to those "gunners" or "punt-shooters" who go after the wild fowl in England or America, by night, to take warning from Jemmy Randall's shot, immortalized in the ancient Irish ballad intituled

MALLY BANN.

1.

Jemmy Randall went a shooting,
A shooting in the dark;
But to his great misfortune,

He did not miss his mark.

2.

His love's apron being about her,
He took her for a swan;

But alas! and for ever, alas!
It was sweet Mally Bann.

3.

When he came up unto her,
And found that she was dead,

Great abundance of salt tears
For his darling he shed.

4.

He went home to his father

With his gun in his hand,
Crying, "Dear father, dear father,
I've shot Mally Bann."

5.

His father looked upon him
(His hair being gray)
Crying, "Oh! my dearest son,
You must not run away:

6.

"Stay at home in your own countryLet your trial come on:

By the laws of sweet Ireland,

You shall never be undone."

7.

Within two or three months after,
To her uncle appeared she,
Crying, "Dear uncle, dear uncle,
Let Jemmy Randall go free.

8.

"For my apron being about me,
He took me for a swan."

But it's oh! and for ever, alas!
It was sweet Mally Bann..

9.

When the fair maids in the city
Were assembled in a row,

She appeared among them
Like a mountain of snow.

10.

All the maidens in the country
They held up their head,
When this beautiful, this lovely
This fair one was dead, &c. &c.
Eheu Mariola.

TAME SWANS.

"I go to soft Elysian shades
And bowers of kind repose;
Where never any storm invades,
Nor tempest ever blows.

"There in cool streams and shady woods

I'll sport the time away,

Or swimming down the crystal floods,
Among young halcyons play."

SONG OF THE DYING SWAN.

THOMAS BROWN, doctor of physic, in the third book of his "Pseudodoxia Epidemica," chapter XXVII., "compendiously treating of sundry tenents concerning other animals, which examined, prove either false or dubious," thus writeth:

"And first from great antiquity, and before the melody of the syrens, the musical note of swans hath been commended, and that they sing most sweetly before their death. Thus we read in Plato, that from the opinion of Metempsuchosis, or transmigration of the souls of men into the bodies of beasts most suitable unto their human condition, after his death, Orpheus the musician, became a swan. Thus was it the bird of Apollo, the god of musick by the Greeks, and the hieroglyphick of musick among the Egyptians, from whom the Greeks derived the conception, hath been the affirmation of many Latines, and hath not wanted assertors almost from every nation."

After much learned discussion wherein, inter alia, he refutes the story "delivered" by Aldrovandi "concerning the musick of the swans on the river of Thames near London," and shows that "the formation of the weazon" in those birds is not peculiar to them "but common also unto the Platea or Shovelard, a bird of no musical throat," he alludes further to the confession of the Italian, that the tracheal apparatus in the swans may be contrived to contain "a larger stock of ayr, whereby being to feed on weeds at the bottom, they might the longer space detain their heads under water."

But a still further objection occurs to the philosophical doctor in "the known and open disadvantage" of a flat bill, "for no latirostrous animals (whereof nevertheless there are no slender

numbers) were ever commended for their note, or accounted among those animals which have been instructed to speak." And he sums up his argument thus:

"When, therefore, we consider the dissention of authors, the falsity of relations, the indisposition of the organs, and the immusical note of all we ever beheld or heard of, if generally taken and comprehending all swans, or of all places, we cannot assent thereto. Surely he that is bit with a tarantula, shall never be cured by this musick; and with the same hopes we expect to hear the harmony of the spheres."

The latter certainly may be expected to regale our ears at about the period when our much confiding friend, Mr. Simbledon Hopeful, receives his first dividend from the grand joint-stock company for pickling pine-apples.

It is curious that ornithologists should term the swan of the poets The Mute Swan, and it is by no means clear that the ancients did not confound the more canorous and less graceful species, the Hooper, with the tame or mute swan, the bird now under consideration. Hoopers may be seen to this day on "Cayster's flowery side," and we know that they "sang their last and died" in the great holocaust when the sun's son was run away with; but the mute swan, Cygnus olor, does not appear to have been ever noticed there. That the last-named species was the musical swan of the ancients there can be no doubt. A cameo, representing Leda and the swan, figured in the "Gemma" of Leonardus Augustinus from the Orsini collection, would extinguish any doubt on that point. The Hooper carries its neck nearly upright as it floats and walks, looking stiff and awkward when compared with the elegant bending carriage of Cygnus olor. When, therefore, Aristotle is quoted as saying that swans are canorous, especially at the end of life, and that they pass over the seas singing, it is almost evident that there is a confusion of the attributes of two species. However this may be, it is pretty clear that Tad passed into a proverb for a dying speech, and that often none of the most decorous. A Deipnosophist in Athenæus tells a story from Chrysippus of a poor devil led forth to death, who prayed the executioner to stay his hand a little while, for that he had a great longing to die like the swans, singing. The carnifex, who from experience knew what odd fancies are apt to come into the minds of men when "small back is gripping them," granted his prayer; when the condemned poured forth such a torrent of invective upon all and sundry as, if done into choice English, would not have disgraced the most celebrated of our Tyburn heroes;-no, not Abershaw himself,

"When the king and the law, and the thief had their own."