stream is strong, the old Swan will sink herself sufficiently
low to bring her back on a level with the water, when the
cygnets will get upon it, and in this manner are conveyed to
the other side of the river, or into stiller water. Each family
of Swans on the river has its own district; and if the limits
of that district are encroached upon by other Swans, a pursuit
immediately takes place, and the intruders are driven
away. Except in this instance, they appear to live in a state
of the most perfect harmony. The male is very attentive to
the female, assists in making the nest, and when a sudden
rise of the river takes place, joins her with great assiduity
in raising the nest sufficiently high to prevent the eggs
being chilled by the action of the water, though sometimes
its rise is so rapid, that the whole nest is washed away and
destroyed.”
The family continue to associate through the winter, but
the following spring the parent birds drive away the young
of the previous year, and oblige them to shift for themselves.
Their food consists of the softer parts of water plants, roots,
aquatic insects, and occasionally small fish; also grain and
bread.
The Swan being identified with Orpheus, and called also
the Bird of Apollo the god of music, powers of song have
been often attributed to it, and as often denied. It is, however,
perfectly true that this bird has a soft low voice, rather
plaintive and with little variety, but not disagreeable. The
Author has often heard it in the spring, and sometimes
later in the season, when the bird was moving slowly about
with its young. Colonel Hawker, in his sporting work
(p. 261), has printed a few bars of the “ Swan’s melody,
formed with two notes, C, and the minor third (E flat), and
the musician kept working his head as if delighted with his
own performance.”
The Mute Swan is generally looked upon as a domesticated
bird, and the individuals which are occasionally shot in
winter are assumed to have strayed from their usual haunts.
This is not necessarily the case, for the Mute Swan still
breeds in a perfectly wild state at no greater distance than
Denmark and the south of Sweden ; while both wild and
half-protected birds are found in many parts of Germany.
Wild birds nest in considerable numbers in Central and
Southern Russia, and in the valley of the Lower Danube ;
also, sparingly, on some of the lakes in Greece ; moie
abundantly in the vicinity of the Black Sea and the Caspian ;
and in Turkestan. In winter, wild birds occur from time to
time throughout the greater part of Europe down to the
basin of the Mediterranean ; and the lakes of Algeria and
Egypt are frequently visited by them. The range of this
species can be traced to south-eastern Siberia, and to the
north-west of India.
Swans, it is said, were first brought into England from
Cyprus, by Richard I., who began his reign in 1189; and
they are particularly mentioned in a MS. of the time of
Edward I. (1272). Paulus Jovius (1548) says that he never
saw a river so thickly covered with Swans as the Thames ,
Turner notices the Swan with the black tubercle on the beak,
in his ‘ Avium Historia,’ published in 1544; and Sibbald
(1684), includes it in his Fauna of Scotland. In 1625, John
Taylor, the water-poet, made a voyage in his wherry from
London to Christchurch, and thence up the Avon to Salisbury,
to ascertain if there were any impediments to navigation
; and “ as I passed up the Avon,” he tells us, “ at the
least 2,000 Swans, like so many pilots, swam in the deepest
places before me, and showed me the wTay.
The author of the ‘ Journal of a Naturalist’ mentions
having seen more than forty at one time, on the great
swan-pool formerly existing near the city of Lincoln. The
swannery of the Earl of Ilcliester, at Abbotsbuiy, near Why
mouth, in Dorsetshire, is well known, and is the largest m
the kingdom ; the Rev. A. C. Smith speaks of seven hundied
on the occasion of his visit (Zool. 1877, p. 305); and Mr.
J. H. Gurney says that when he was there in the following
April he was informed by the ancient swanherd that the
number was then fully thirteen hundred (Zool. 1878, p. 208).
In August 1883, when Mr. Cecil Smith was there, the
number had sadly fallen off; but at W e y m o u t h there were