Some of the evidence offered
in support of the hypothesis that trumpeter swans once nested across eastern
North America is worthy of detailed examination. Here we will give this
evidence a close look, closer than might be possible in a published
format.
In a
1992 edition of The
Trumpeter Swan Society Newsletter [21(2):8] appears an article by H. G. Lumsden, an
officer
of the Society. Entitled “Trumpeter Swans Once Bred on the Atlantic
Coast,” it purports to offer evidence that the species once nested in
Nova Scotia.
This
evidence consists of a sentence cited from the French explorer
Dièreville, whose visit in 1699 and 1700 to Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick led him to write (as Lumsden cites him) that one can “go
Bird-nesting for the eggs of the Swan, wild Geese, and a thousand other
birds
of that character.” (Dièreville 1708. Relation of the Voyage
to
Port Royal in Acadia or New France. J. C. Webster, ed. The Champlain Society XX,
Toronto)
On the
face
of it, this statement seems to confirm swan nesting in the area, and when
seen
in the light of Lumsden’s assertion that the tundra swan, Cygnus
columbianus, the
only other swan species in North America, bred only far to the north, it
seems
to confirm that the trumpeter swan C. buccinator was the locally nesting species.
But let us take a closer look.
First,
Dièreville wrote in French. Here is his statement in the original,
with
context that includes some subsequent remarks. It follows descriptions of
wood
ducks and black ducks, and a bit of verse about eagles that ends observing
how
dangerous it would be to try to remove their young from the
nest:
Mais on peut sûrement dénicher les ouefs
des
Cygnes, des Outardes, des Oyes, & de mille autres Oyseaux de cette
nature.
Dans la saison que l’amour fait sentir ses feux à tout ce qui
respire, & que les Oyseaux deviennent les premiers amoureux, ceux que
j’ay marquez vont fair leurs nids dans une Isle qu’on apelle
à cause de cela, l’Isle aux Oyseaux. Quand on scait à
peu
pres qu’ils ont pondu, on va de compagnie enlever leurs oeufs; les
Oyseaux éfarouchez & troublez par tout ce qui’il y a
d’hommes répandus dans l’Isle, se levent de dessus leurs
nids avec de grands cris chacun à sa manière, et forment dans
les
airs, par leur multitude innombrable, une nuée si épaisse, que
le
jour en est obscurci sur toute l’ile; on dit même qu’on y
voit pas le ciel. [pp
64-64 of 1885 Quebec edition, suppressed second sentence
restored]
J. C.
Webster, editor of the Champlain Society’s translation of this
work--the
version cited by Lumsden--puts this passage as
follows:
But one can safely go Bird-nesting for the eggs of the
Swan, wild Geese and a thousand other Birds of that character. In the season
when the fires of love are felt by all living things, and Birds become the
first lovers, those that I have mentioned go to make their nests on Bird
Island, so called for that reason. About the time that they are known to
have
laid their eggs, People go there in crowds to collect them; the Birds,
disturbed & frightened by the number of men scattered over the Island,
rise
from their nests with great cries, each according to its nature, &
because
of the countless multitude of them, a cloud is formed in the air; it is even
said that the Sky cannot be seen. [pp 113-114]
Webster
annotates “Swan” in a footnote as “the Trumpeter swan of
Canada (Ganong). Used first by Cartier in 1535; mentioned by Champlain,
Denys,
and Le Clercq. The bird is not now found in Acadia.” He also annotates “wild
Geese”
as follows: “The mention of Outardes and Oies in the same sentence raises a question of identity,
which
the translator has preferred to avoid by including both under the
designation
Wild Geese.” Thus, a more accurate translation than that given by
Lumsden
of this important passage would be “But one can safely go Bird-nesting
for the eggs of Swans, Bustards, Geese, and a thousand other birds of that
character.”
Early
French explorers in North America often call attention to
[ line 140 of 332 (42%), character 4558 of 16329 (27%) ]
“outardes” in their encounters with
wetland birds. Bustards are unknown in the New World, and, as in other
cases,
Europeans named these birds by analogy with species familiar in Europe. We
are
not entirely certain what North American species is involved in every case
of
the use of the word. Otis, translator of Champlain’s
Voyages for The Prince Society in 1882
(Vol
12, pp 48-49) cites numerous uses of the word, and concludes that only the
brant Branta bernicla could have been meant, rather than the three other species of goose
native to the region. Nearly all other authorities, however, differ in
regarding
it as the Canada goose Branta canadensis.
Whoever is right, it is clear that Dièreville identifies not
one
but two species of North American geese, along with the swans, as victims of
nest-hunters.
As
it
happens, Dièreville, describes
“outardes” just a few pages previous thus:
“on n’y pouvoit tirer à son aise que lorsque les
Outardes
quittent le Nord, & passent par bandes aller au Sud; & quand elles
reviennent du Sud pour retourner au Nord. Elles passent dans le mois de
Novembre, & repassent dans le mois de May. Je ne fis pourtant pas un
grand
abatis de ce Gibier; c’étoit dommage, car les Outardes sont
bonnes
& presque aussi grosses que des Cignes: Elles sont de la couleur de nos
Oyes sauvages; la différence qu’il y a entr’elles,
c’est qu’elles ont le col violet & des plaques blanches aux
deus côtez de la tête.” (p.104 Rouen edition). The Champlain Society
edition translates it thus: “One can only shoot in comfort when the
Wild
Geese leave the North, & pass over in flocks, on their way South, &
when they return from the South on their way North. They go in the month of
November, & they come back in the month of May. I did not, however, make
a
great killing of the Game, which was a pity, for Wild Geese are good, &
almost as large as Swans. They are the same color as our Wild Geese, &
the
difference between is that these have a purple neck & white patches on
either side of the head.“The description is not perfect, but he seems
to
be describing the Canada goose here. He is also clearly describing a bird
of passage,
not a local nester whose eggs could be robbed.
In fact,
there is no evidence that any of the four species of North American geese
—
brant, Canada goose, greater white-fronted goose, and snow goose — has
ever nested in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, except in quite recent times
when
there are a few nestings recorded for Canada goose. There are further
problems
with the statement, for Dièreville goes on to place the nests of
these
swans and various geese, “those that I have mentioned,” on Bird
Island, then describes an egging expedition, typical of the era, to a
coastal
island. Webster, in a note to the passage, is unable to locate this
“Isle
des Oyseaux,” and Dièreville may be misremembering here. In any
event, he seems to be describing a dense population of colonial seabirds
—
cormorants, alcids, gannets, gulls and terns, etc. — extremely
unlikely
companions for nesting swans or geese, and an island off the coast —
an
equally unlikely site for swans’ and geese’s nests, with their
very
different habitats and territorial requirements. Nowhere do swans and geese
nest so densely that disturbed nesters would obscure the sky.
Dièreville
was a fair naturalist, and a fairly scrupulous reporter, but in this case he
either was carried away by a flight of fancy, failed to recall important
details, or the text is corrupt.
In any event, it is unwise to use this tiny, dubious statement to
alter
so radically our understanding of the former breeding range of C.
buccinator. Finally, however, Lumsden
concludes his remarks by saying, “The coastal marshes of the Bay of
Fundy, periodically inundated with sea water and with safe nesting sites
among
the litter of driftwood and wrack driven beyond high-tide mark by unusual
storms, would have been good nesting areas for both Trumpeters and Canada
Geese.” There is no
evidence
that trumpeter swans choose to nest in tidal salt marshes; they are
freshwater
breeders, and tend to avoid saltwater even in migration and
winter.
*
John Lawson’s A New
Voyage to Carolina (1709) is a basic
text in the history of colonial America. A work of great charm, its extensive
remarks on the native American tribes of the area show a respect and
understanding rare among Europeans of the day. Lawson was a careful observer
and scrupulous reporter, and his writing is remarkably free of the wild
exaggerations commonly encountered in explorers’ tales.
Lawson was deeply interested
in the natural history of the area, and his remarks on swans are often cited as
demonstrating his considerable talents as an observer: “Of the Swans
we have two sorts: the one we call Trompeters, because of a trompeting Noise
they make. These are the largest sort we have, which come in great Flocks in
Winter, and stay, commonly, in the fresh Rivers till February, that the Spring
comes on, when they go to the Lakes to breed. A Cygnet, that is, last
Year’s Swan, is accounted a delicate Dish, as indeed it is. They are
known by their Head and Feathers, which are not so white as Old ones. The sort
of Swans call’d Hoopers, are the least. They abide more in the
Salt-Water, and are equally valuable, for Food, with the former. It is
observable, that neither of these have a black Piece of horny Flesh down the
Head, and Bill, as they have in England.”
Other than as an entry in an
earlier list of species, this is Lawson’s only specific reference to
trumpeter swans. Most readers find
the passage remarkable for its perceptive distinctions among three swan
species, especially in view of the fact that it was to be more than 120 years
before the trumpeter swan’s formal description for science. Some regard
it as testimony that the species wintered in Carolina and returned elsewhere to
nest. Proponents of a much larger ancestral breeding range for this species,
however, seize upon the clause “when they go to the Lakes to breed”
as all the proof needed to include the Carolinas in the trumpeter’s
former breeding range. Let us look more closely at this last assumption.
Lawson mentions swans eight
times in the work. Other than the two above specific mentions of trumpeter
swans, he brings up swans as food near Bulls Island, S.C. on 2 January, flocks
of swans on the Yadkin River later that month, swans as food again in January,
swans as food in December, a trivial mention of “Swan-Shot” as
ammunition, and “swan” as an entry in a dictionary of Indian
languages. He does not mention “Hoopers” other than in the passage
cited above. All of Lawson’s reported swan sightings occurred during the
winter, when both species were present. Never does Lawson recount an
observation of swans of either species in the nesting season.
But what of the lakes he
mentions? Why would Lawson mention lakes if he didn’t have specific ones
in mind? Lawson never describes actually visiting a lake in his travels, even
though much of his transportation was via water. He does allude to “Percoarsons”
(pocosins) from time to time, as dry depressions or wooded swamps in the
landscape. When he does speak of
them, lakes are evoked as distant, and outside his direct experience. At one
point he states that flooding “is suppos’d to proceed from the
overflowing of fresh Water-Lakes that lie near the Head of this River [the
Santee],” This is mistaken, as the annotator of the University of North
Carolina edition points out, but Lawson is customarily scrupulous in denying
direct experience by saying “suppos’d.” Elsewhere he imbues far-off lake
country with mystery, and is again careful to deny direct observations: “I
have been inform’d by the Indians,
that on a Lake of Water towards the Head of Neus River [again, it
seems there was no such lake], there haunts a Creature, which frightens them
all from Hunting thereabouts. They say, he is the Colour of a Panther, but
cannot run up Trees; and that there abides with him a Creature like an Englishman’s Dog, which runs faster than he
can, and gets his Prey for him…The Certainty of this I cannot affirm by
my own Knowledge, yet they all agree in this Story.”
Another of his few uses of
the word “lakes” involves second-hand stories of fabulous
creatures, and again in lakes unvisited by Lawson: “…we are told
by the Indians, of a great many
strange and uncouth shapes and sorts of Fish, which they have found in the
Lakes laid down in my Chart. However, as we can give no further Account of
these than by Hear-Say; I proceed to treat of the Shell-Fish…”
Lawson’s chart, with the
exception of careful detail for coastal settlements in Pamlico Sound, is
considered sketchy and derivative. Only one feature is labeled
“Lake,” and it seems to be located in the Camden, S.C. area, but it
is impossible to be certain as it includes very few details.
For present purposes, the
most enlightening use of the word “lakes” comes only a few pages
after the cited passage on swans, in the account of another bird species: “The
Blue-Wings are less than a Duck, but fine Meat. These are the first Fowls that
appear to us in the Fall of the Leaf, coming then in great Flocks, as we
suppose, from Canada, and the
Lakes that lie behind us.”
Again, Lawson reports
accurately the arrival of migrant teal, making sure to tell us he only supposes
they had departed from Canada and the lakes. He again explicitly denies
first-hand experience with the lakes mentioned, and we know large flocks of
blue-winged teal did not breed in the Carolinas.
Let us propose a different
interpretation of Lawson’s meaning of the “lakes” from which
migrant birds came to Carolina. An educated Englishman of his day would have
read accounts of explorers in the interior vastness of North America, with
their stories of endless forests and chains of huge lakes or “sweet
oceans,” as well as unimaginably huge hordes of waterfowl, but these
distant realms would have had a semi-legendary quality for a distant inhabitant
of England, or even the coastal Carolina colony. Lawson’s sojourn to the
Carolinas took place only three years after Hennepin published his wildly
popular account of LaSalle’s passage through the Great Lakes in search of
the mouth of the Mississippi. Lawson, in the Preface to his work, praises the
French for “always send[ing] abroad some of their Gentleman in Company of
their Missionaries, who, upon their Arrival, are order’d out into the
Wilderness, to make Discoveries…” Quite possibly the imagination of
the young Lawson was fired by their reports. Indeed, the Great Lakes, as presented in Hennepin’s
extravagantly embellished descriptions, or in the soberer ones of Jesuit
missionaries from earlier decades, must have seemed a conceivable source of the
multitudes of ducks, geese, and swans that arrived from the north to winter in
Carolina.
John Brickell, whose The
Natural History of North-Carolina
(1737) was only one of several contemporary works consisting in part of
plagiarism of Lawson, nevertheless presented a great deal of his own work. A
physician who practiced for years in Edenton, North Carolina, he embellishes
Lawson’s accounts with his own experience—he includes many pages of
original work on Indians of the region, for example—and adds his own
knowledge of herbal and animal remedies to the natural history accounts. His
account of swans is more detailed, though still largely derived from
Lawson’s. Here he says: “The Swans, whereof there are two sorts. The first are called the Trumpeters, from a trumpeting sort of noise they
make, and are the largest sort of Swans
in these parts. They come here in the Winter,
and remain with us ‘till February,
in such great Flocks, that I never saw more of any Waterfowl in all my Travels
than of them, for at that Season, they are in such vast Numbers on each side of
the fresh Water Rivers and Creeks, that at a distance it seems to be land
covered with Snow. About Christmas they are frequently so fat, that some of
them are scarce able to fly. In Spring
they go to the Northern Lakes to
breed. I have several times eat of them, and do prefer them before any Goose,
for the goodness and delicacy of their Meat, and especially a Cygnet, or last years Swan. These Swans
are larger than any I have seen in Europe.
Their Quills and Feathers are in great request amongst the Planters. As to
their Flesh and Parts, they have the same Virtues with that of the Geese.”
The freely-added detail,
emphasized in italics in the original, that the “Lakes” lay to the
north is one that must be explained by those who suppose they were in the
Carolinas.
The first public assertion
that Lawson’s testimony verified the trumpeter swan as a breeder in the
Carolinas appears in a paper, circulating in typescript by 1978 and for twenty
years thereafter until its publication by The Trumpeter Swan Society, by Philip
M. Rogers and Donald A. Hammer, “Ancestral Breeding and Wintering Ranges
of the Trumpeter Swan (Cygnus buccinator) in the Eastern United States.” As regards the Lawson testimony
as well as in other aspects, this paper’s hypotheses have been
uncritically accepted by swan enthusiasts as established truth. In order to do
its arguments justice, we quote the entirety of its section devoted to Lawson,
and interpolate commentary in bold and
in square brackets: “The expansion of the colonial population resulted
in two distinct groups of reports from the period 1600-1831. The earlier group,
from the East Coast, includes the only generally accepted reference to a
population of C. buccinator in the
region. [it is not
generally accepted that this population was a breeding one; if the authors mean
another sort of population, Lawson’s is far from being the only
reference] This frequently cited
volume is the work of John Lawson (1709) concerning the English colony of
Carolina. Lawson said: [Rogers and
Hammer here reproduce the passage cited above]. Early accounts of the Carolina Colony, including
modern North and South Carolina, agree on the frequency of
“ricelands” and the enormous numbers of waterfowl. [whenever determinable, these accounts are of
wintering waterfowl] Catesby
(1731) [who mentions “wild
swans” once, without elaborating species or dates] and Bartram (van Doren 1928} [who includes “swans” only in his list
of wintering migrants from far to the north] in particular recorded South Carolina as an extension of North
Carolina [actually the Carolina
colony extended—and was so mapped by Lawson -- to south of St. Augustine,
thus encompassing parts of present-day Georgia and Florida], yet the ancestral wintering range presented by
Bellrose and by Palmer is limited to the northern half of North Carolina.
Indeed, Lawson recorded swans
[Lawson does not specify the species; no evidence establishes these birds were
trumpeters] at Bulls Island, South
Carolina, and on the Yadkin River in January 1701 [ditto].
The early spring in that year suggests that Lawson observed a normally
occurring population rather than birds forced south by bad weather. [indeed, Lawson is one authority for the inclusion
of South Carolina in the accepted winter range of the tundra swan]
“The general
accuracy of Lawson’s description, his travels in the interior, and his
frontier home make it obvious that he was familiar with the animals and plants
he described. It is thus suggestive that Lawson described C. buccinator as nesting on the
“lakes.” If we credit Lawson with direct observation [an assumption not justified by the evidence] and accept contemporary accounts of the habitat
(including Lawson’s) [even
so, there is no evidence Lawson was referring to lakes in Carolina], we may postulate a breeding population of C. buccinator
in the coastal region of Carolina [Lawson
does not locate these lakes near the Carolina coast]. Suitable habitat can be found in the Carolina
Bays (Wharton 1978, Justus 1978), a series of lakes distributed over an area of
65,000 Km² along the coast of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida (Cole
1975). This postulated C. buccinator
population would have been exterminated before 1800. [what evidence exists for this population from
1701-1800?] It should be noted
that Hornaday’s (1913) correspondents reported C. buccinator as an extinct species in Georgia, and
though the basis for this report is unknown, the other reports cited [?]
suggest that it may have some validity.
“Lawson’s
other “sort of Swans call’d Hoopers” are plainly
C. columbianus, and his comment about
“a
black Piece of horny Flesh” refers to the mute swan
(C. olor). It is a reflection of
Lawson’s
ability that he distinguished three of the five species of
northern hemisphere
swans. Few of the colonial reports, however, show any evidence of
such
distinction. Beauchamp Plantagenet (1618) reported “Swans,
Hoopers,
Geese, Ducks, Teles, and other Fowles” at the colony of New
Albion in
upper Delaware Bay. Unfortunately, Plantagenet failed to give any
indication of
the season [but he
does: the
presence of geese, ducks, teal, etc., strongly suggests a period
outside the
breeding season at this latitude].
William Barrett (1610), reporting on Virginia, cited the former
governor of the
colony, Thomas Gates, as saying, “The rivers from August, or
September,
till February, are covered with flocks of Wildfoule: as Swannes,
geese, ducks,
teal,…” clearly indicating the season and migratory
habit, but not
distinguishing species of swans or indicating breeding habitat.
[it reveals very little else indeed,
and reporting
these species on Virginia rivers in August doesn’t inspire
confidence in
his reliability] The
same is true
of Hilton (1664): “…and as the Indians say, in Winter
with Swans,
Geese, Cranes,…” [the
context of Hilton’s remarks makes it clear these waterfowl were
not present at the time, and his evidence for their presence in winter is
hearsay] Comparable [comparably untrustworthy or inconclusive?] reports document the presence of swans along the
entire Atlantic coast during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. [this
statement requires evidence; we are aware of no reliable reports of swans south
of South Carolina during the period]
“Interpretation of
these colonial reports requires that several points be considered. First, the
people writing the reports were familiar with swans in Europe and seldom described
in detail animals which were common in the home Country. Hence, the usual
passing mention accorded the swans of North America. [perhaps, but there are no reports, however lacking
in detailed description, of swans of any sort in breeding season in the region]
Second, the majority of the early
authors, like their colonies, were restricted to the coastal region by low
population density [wouldn’t
low density imply wide dispersal?],
Indians [explorers of the day
relied heavily on help from Indians],
and unexplored wilderness [begs
the question, saying people weren’t exploring the wilderness because they
were surrounded by unexplored wilderness]. Reports of the interior, like those of Lawson (1709) and Catesby
(1731) are rare [why are there no
reports from the people who must have been present during the extermination of
the swans “before 1800”?].
Third, most travel to the New World was deliberately scheduled for arrival in
the fall and winter to avoid the disease-ridden summer months [for the crews perhaps, but far more people lived
there year-round], particularly in
the Southeast where malaria and yellow fever were endemic and smallpox
flourished. The final point concerns the migratory behavior of the species
recorded. Reports of migratory bird arrival and departure dates are in
agreement with modern observations, but no information is given on the distance
or direction of migration or the destination [parsimoniously, wouldn’t this lack of information arise
because the breeding grounds were far from the Atlantic coast?]
“Consideration
of these points and the earlier discussion of the migratory behavior of C. buccinator supports the possibility of C. buccinator wintering in easily observed flocks
on the rivers and dispersing into the interior, east of the Appalachian
mountains [where is the evidence for locating this area east of the
Appalachians?], to
breed. The season when C. buccinator breeds, the general restriction of the early colonists to
coastal estuaries, and the elusiveness of nesting waterfowl would combine to
produce relatively few [are there any?] observations of nesting swans.
Reported observations would be fewer, for reasons discussed. [again,
parsimony demands that we assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary,
there were no swans because there were none to report].”
The assertion of a Carolina breeding population of trumpeter
swans rests on no direct evidence, but rather on selective interpretations,
unwarranted inferences, and speculations, guided by what seems to be wishful
thinking. Rogers and Hammer, it is true, avoid direct assertion, repeatedly
using the word “postulation” to describe their hypotheses, and
locutions such as that the evidence “supports the possibility of”
their suppositions. They summarize their reasoning by saying, “Evidence
has been presented (summarized in Figure 2) to support postulations of breeding
populations of C. buccinator in Florida, the
Carolinas, Ohio, and the Lower Mississippi Valley…the evidence currently
available is limited by a variety of factors, but we anticipate that additional
evidence will become available with continued archaeological and
paleontological field efforts with further publication and republication of
manuscripts and volumes of historical significance.”
No additional evidence has come to light, despite the
passage of 23 years since those words were written. Instead, overweening swan
enthusiasts have treated Rogers and Hammer’s tentative hypotheses as
confirmed beyond doubt. This is surely an unwise step. Even Rogers and Hammer
fail to include the Carolinas in their Figure 4, a map which proposes wholesale
enlargements of the ancestral range of trumpeter swans in the east. In their
summary, the authors cite evidence “summarized in Figure 2” in
support of the Carolina breeding hypothesis. Figure 2 features three black dots
in the Carolinas. That numbered “30” is said to indicate a
historical sighting report from Lawson (1709), and appears to be in or near the
present-day city of Jacksonville, N.C.; to what report of Lawson’s it
refers it is difficult to say, especially since Lawson cites no precise
location for trumpeter swans. Two black dots, both (perhaps in error) numbered
“29,” refer to Lawson 1701 (1709) [?]. One seems close to the area
where Lawson reported “swans” of unspecified species in salt water
near Bulls Island, S.C. in January. The other dot numbered “29”
seems to be in North Carolina, about 200 miles west of the Outer Banks, perhaps
in the vicinity of the present Uwharrie National Forest, though nothing in Lawson’s
work refers to this location. The whole matter seems unsatisfactorily resolved,
but that has unfortunately not prevented Carl D. Mitchell, author of the
account for trumpeter swan in the respected Birds of North America series, as well as other officers of The
Trumpeter Swan Society, from citing Rogers and Hammer in sole support of
statements that the species’ former breeding range extended “south
to Carolinas.” There hangs by such a slender thread their proposed
extension, by over 500 miles, of the established breeding range of the
trumpeter swan.