SWANS. 145 



which reduced the number nearly half. The Fleet 

 was frozen throughout during an extremely low 

 spring-tide, when the water-plants growing at the 

 bottom, becoming entangled in the ice, were torn up 

 by the roots at the returning tide. Many of the 

 Swans, thus suddenly deprived of their supply of 

 food, either died of famine or migrated, and reduced 

 the number to about 800, which average it now 

 maintains. 



The " View in the Swannery," which forms the 

 frontispiece to this volume, was photographed during 

 the summer of 1887. The Chesil Beach is seen in 

 the distance : the sea lies beyond. 



POLISH SWAN. Ci/gnus imimdahills, Yarrell. 



Yarrell, iv. p. 340; Harting, p. 153; Has List, p. 120. 



The claim of the so-called Polish Swan to rank as 

 specifically distinct from the Mute Swan is disputed. 

 It is said to differ from the last-named species in 

 having a smaller tubercle at the base of the upper 

 mandible in the adult, black edges to the gape, 

 and slate-coloured legs ; a further peculiarity being 

 that the plumage of the cygnet is white from birth, 

 and not brownish-grey, as is the case with the other 

 species. This peculiarity, however, appears not to 

 be constant (see Professor Newton's remarks in The 

 Zoologist for December 1887, p. 463). The Polish 

 Swan is unknow^n in the Swannery at Abbotsbury, 

 and no wliite cygnets have ever been seen there. ^ 



1 Gurney, Zoologist, 1878, p. 208. 



