World Waterfowl Day: Mute Swan

The 17th January is World Waterfowl Day, the purpose of which is to raise public awareness, knowledge and interest in various species of waterfowl such as ducks, swans and geese. Therefore, in this post, we will be raising awareness of one species of waterfowl mentioned in Francis Willughby’s Ornithologia that is known today as the Mute Swan.

In Ornithologia, Willughby called the Mute Swan the Tame Swan or Cygnus mansuetus. Furthermore, in his earlier Catalogue of English Birds, Willughby identified this species by the names of Swan, Cygnus or Olor. When Linnaeus published the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae in 1758, he stated that Willughby and John Ray’s Tame Swan was the same species as the Whooper Swan and provided them the taxonomical name of Anas cygnus. In 1789, Johann Friedrich Gmelin identified it once again as a separate species and provided the name of Anas olor. It gained its modern taxonomical name of Cygnus olor in 1803 when it was moved to the new Cygnus genus. Modern genetic analysis has confirmed the Mute Swan to be a separate species and in fact its closest relative is the Black Swan (Cygnus atratus) of Australia.

Image of Mute Swan in Francis Willughby's Ornithologia

In Ornithologia, Willughby wrote that this bird was the biggest of all of the whole-footed waterfowl with broad bills. Willughby and Ray recorded that one that they had measured weighed 20lbs (about 9kg) and was 55 inches long (about 139cm) from the tip of the bill to the end of the tail and 57 inches (about 144cm) to the end of the feet. The distance between the tips of the wings when extended measured 7 foot 8 inches (about 233cm).

The whole body of this bird was covered with a soft delicate plumage, in the old ones purely white and in the young ones grey. They observed that the quills of the greater wing feathers in this bird were bigger than in the Whooper Swan. The bill of the young ones for the first year was of a lead colour, having a round nail at the tip and a black line on each side from the nostrils to the head. From the eyes to the bill was a triangular space of a black colour and bare of feathers. In old ones, the bill was red and the hook or nail at the end was black. Above, at the base of the bill, grew a great lobe of tuberous flesh of a black colour and the space under the eyes always continued black. The tongue was indented or toothed. The feet were of a lead colour, bare a little above the knee, and the inmost toe had a lateral membrane appendant. The claws were black.

Mute Swans on frozen moat at Middleton Hall. Photograph taken by Miss Edith Davis.

Willughby wrote that he was certain that this was not the same species of swan as the Whooper Swan, which had been claimed by others. This was because of differences he had observed in the structure of the windpipe of the two species. In the Whooper Swan, he observed that the windpipe entered the breastbone cavity, whilst in the Mute Swan it descended straight to the lungs.

They stated that the Mute Swan fed upon plants growing in the water, and their roots and seeds, or upon worms, other insects and shellfish. This bird laid seven or eight eggs and sat nearly two months before its young ones were hatched. Quoting Albertus Magnus, who was alive in the 13th century, they wrote that the flesh was black and hard. Yet, due to its rarity, it was served as a dish to adorn the tables, feasts and entertainments of great men, for which apart from that, he had said, it was not desirable.

Further Reading: John Ray, Francis Willughby's Ornithologia, 1678, p355, T69.

Carl Linnaeus, Systema Naturae, 10th edition, p122.

Author - Debbie Jordan, Middleton Hall Volunteer.

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