. Our domestic birds; elementary lessons in aviculture . a black mixed with red. Swans are very long-lived birds, but stories of swans livingto seventy or eighty years of age are not to be credited. Itcannot be affirmed that the birds may not live as long asthat, but the evidence in the cases reported is defective. Thereports of swans living for fifty years are quite credible. Themale and female swan are not readily distinguished, for thereare no external indications of sex, and the birds use theirvoices so rarely that, even if there is a difference in the notesof the male and female, it is no
. Our domestic birds; elementary lessons in aviculture . a black mixed with red. Swans are very long-lived birds, but stories of swans livingto seventy or eighty years of age are not to be credited. Itcannot be affirmed that the birds may not live as long asthat, but the evidence in the cases reported is defective. Thereports of swans living for fifty years are quite credible. Themale and female swan are not readily distinguished, for thereare no external indications of sex, and the birds use theirvoices so rarely that, even if there is a difference in the notesof the male and female, it is not practical to use it to distinguish 224 OUR DOMESTIC BIRDS between them. The only way to identify the sex with certaintyis by observing the birds at nesting time. The name swan is Anglo-Saxon. Nothing is known of itsderivation. The terms cock and hen are sometimes appliedto swans as they are to many other kinds of birds. The swan-herds in England call the male a cob and the female a pen. Theyoung swan is called a cygnet, from the French word for Fig. 176. Swan and nest Origin and history in domestication. Tradition says that thedomestic swan was brought to England from France by Richardthe Lion-hearted. As the swan is a migratory bird, still some-times seen in many parts of the Eastern Hemisphere north of theequator, it is possible that swans were known in England longbefore the reign of this king. However that may be, it is certainthat, from about the time of the Norman Conquest, the swanhas occupied a peculiar position in England. It was regarded SWAXS 225 as a royal bird, and the privilege of owning swans was grantedonly to those in high station. At first the number of those whowere permitted to own swans was very small, but it was afterwardextended until, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, more than ninehundred different swanmarks were registered by the royal swan-herd, who had general oversight of all the swans in the swans were marked by branding or cutt
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