Swan if a mate dies, the remaining swan will take up with another. The number of eggs in each clutch ranges from three to eight. The English word 'swan', akin to the German "Schwan", Dutch "zwaan" and Swedish "svan", is derived from Indo-European root "*swen" (to sound, to sing). Young swans are known as "swanlings" or as "cygnets"; the latter derives via Old French "cigne" or "cisne" (diminutive suffix -"et" "little") from the Latin word "", a variant form of "cycnus" "swan", itself from the Greek "kýknos", a word of the same meaning. An adult male is a "cob", from Middle
Barbara Swan Sexton, "A Reminiscence", is included in "Anne Sexton: Telling the Tale", a collection of essays published in 1988. In the essay Swan recalls, among other things, how her lithograph, "The Musicians", inspired Sexton's poem, "To Lose the Earth", and her drawing, "Man Carrying a Man", inspired Sexton's "Jesus Walking". Critic Vernon Young, reviewing "Transformations" in 1972, wrote, "The drawings of Barbara Swan incisively complement the poems. Their designs are what they should be: importunate and macabre; Gothic and placental." At least one critic found Swan's illustrations distastefully female. John N. Morris, reviewing "Up Country" in 1974, called them "prettifications" and