Romans, FT Traders and Black Swans ... what's the connection

[Andrew Taylor <>]

On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 02:07:58PM +1000, Chris Gregory wrote:
> Willem de Vlamingh's exploratory expedition for the Dutch East Company
> sailed up the Swan river on January 10th 1697. Black swans were taken back
> to Europe. All died on the voyage but the specimens were preserved and this
> was the first time Europeans had seen entirely black swans. The South
> American Black-necked swan, *Cygnus melancoryphus*, is obviously not
> entirely black.

Cygnus atratus isn't entirely black and to be even more pedantic we
don't know that no Europeans had seen C. atratus before 1697.  A number
of European ships reached our coastline in the preceding century.

Andrew