swan

     

6-7 living, see text.

Trivia about swan

  • Australia boasts the only all black type of this often white & graceful aquatic bird
  • In an 1870s ballet, Prince Siegfried falls in love with one of these graceful birds
  • The black one of these, a symbol of Western Australia, is seen here on that state's flag
  • An ancient belief says this bird "sings before death" (& maybe dances by the lake)
  • E.B. White: "The Trumpet of the ____"
  • Zeus became Leda's lover while disguised as one of these birds
  • In French this graceful swimmer is un cygne
  • The scientific name of the "mute" type is Cygnus olor
  • After Zeus mated with Leda, disguised as this bird, Castor & Pollux were born in an egg
  • St. Hugh of Lincoln was famous for having one of these graceful birds as a pet
  • When Zeus played follow the Leda, he did it in the form of this bird & seduced her
  • Tenor Leo Slezak covered a staging mistake in "Lohengrin" by ad-libbing, "What time is the next" this graceful bird
  • A painting by Paul Cezanne shows "Leda and" this bird
  • Since 1905 it's been dying, dying--still fluttering--dead!
  • Seen here is the trumpeter variety of this bird, whose name comes from an old word for "singer"
  • In a Tchaikovsky ballet, Prince Siegfried goes hunting for these animals & falls in love with 1 of them
  • As Shakespeare was the Sweet this bird of Avon, Anna "Elegy on Captain Cook" Seward was this bird of Lichfield
  • The play's the thing in a theatre named for this bird to which Ben Jonson compared Shakespeare
  • The mute species of this bird is not entirely mute; it makes a hoarse, wheezing sound
  • An artist's last great work is often described as this bird's "song"
  • The "mute" type of this graceful waterfowl isn't really silent: it hisses, grunts & even makes snoring sounds
  • ...Of Yeats' "Leda and" this bird mentions "her nape caught in his bill"
  • Australia has the only all-black species of this bird, Cygnus atratus