"..watched him seize a silver fish from under the water and hold up his head and go through the customary and elaborate motions of swallowing it..."

06-25 ||  Readers: 20

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The Silver Swan is a life-size musical automaton built in 1773 from silver and glass, now housed in the Bowes Museum in County Durham.
The clockwork swan rests on a "stream" of glass rods in which little silver fishes swim. When activated the swan preens itself then appears to catch one of the fish before swallowing it in a display which lasts around 40 seconds.

The mechanism, built by John Joseph Merlin (who also brought us the rollerskate) includes "six camshafts, a quadrant-and-pinion, chains running up the slender neck and a pair of spring-operated lazy tongs." While this 235 year old swan is still eating fish daily, its real life counterparts prefer underwater plants and cereal crops.
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