MUTE SWAN. 73 



tinue sitting, and take the sole charge of the cygnets 

 he has succeeded in rearing, but this is exceptional. 

 More commonly when the female dies off her nest, as 

 the marshmen say, from fever, the male also leaves it 

 and the eggs are spoiled. The hen bird when thus 

 affected, which is usually after sitting about a month, 

 quits her nest altogether, and withdraws into the thick 

 reeds or sedges, to mope and die. The beak is kept 

 constantly open, whilst a watery secretion appears to 

 flow contmually from the mandibles, and the bird rapidly 

 wastes to mere skin and bone. When found in this 

 state, Rich has occasionally saved the swan's life by 

 taking it at once into the river, if nesting on the broad, 

 or from one part of the river to another ; thus changing 

 the water, and probably varying the diet at the same 

 time. Some few years back, on Surlingham Broad, a 

 female, which only a day or two before had hatched 

 ten cygnets, died suddenly, off the nest, when the cock 

 bird continued to brood them, and when able to leave 

 the nest, proudly '^mothered" his numerous progeny, 

 often carrying them on his back, and never ceased 

 his watchful care of them until the autumnal swan 

 " upping " relieved him of his charge. The same bird 

 paired again the next season, but his second mate, lived 

 only two years, and then, singularly enough, died as 

 the former one had done, but leaving him with a sitting 

 of ten eggs. This time, although he took to the nest 

 as before, he only brought off two cygnets, contenting 

 himself with those first hatched, and allowed the rest 

 of the eggs to become cold. Swans, as a rule, have but 

 one brood a year, not laying a second time, unless the 

 first eggs are bad, or are otherwise destroyed.'^ Some 



* A swan which had by some accident lost a sitting of ten 

 eggs, in about three weeks laid six or seven more. Another, 

 which had eight eggs stolen, laid seven the second time. 

 L 



