84 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



whilst they acquit the old swans of eating the spawn 

 themselves, they assert that they pull up the weeds with 

 spawn on for their young ones. Whether correct or not, 

 however, on this point, it is undoubtedly in May and 

 June, when the roach and bream enter the broads and 

 dykes in shoals to deposit their spawn, that the marsh- 

 men invariably find both old and young swans collected 

 together in those shallow waters, busily foraging 

 amongst the herbage under the banks of the stream, 

 where spawn had been previously noticed. 



Taking the annual number of breeding swans on the 

 Yare, between Thorpe and Hardley Cross — including, of 

 course, the broads at Surlingham and Uockland — at 

 twenty-five pairs, this can scarcely be deemed an exces- 

 sive number to be spread over an area of from ten to 

 twelve miles, but, inasmuch as the upper portions of 

 the river, from the absence of " ronds," are less suitable 

 for nesting purposes, and as from their close vicinity to 

 the city the eggs"^ are more liable to be stolen, the 



Dorsetshire, the numbers counted in 1868, as I learn from Mr. 

 Alfred Newton, amounted to 856, of which he saw over 230 when 

 visiting the spot in 1869. 



* *' In the Coke reports (see " The Swan case") the ancient penalty 

 for taking swans' eggs is thus given under the statute of II. Hen., 

 7, cap. 17 : — " He who stealeth the eggs of swans out of the nest 

 shall be imprisoned for a year and a day and fined to the King, one 

 moiety to the King the other to the owner of the land where the 

 eggs were taken." At the present time, by an Act passed in the 

 reign of William IV. (1 and 2 Wm. IV., c. 32, s. 24), the taking or 

 destroying the eggs of any bird of game, or any Swan, wild duck, 

 teal, or widgeon, by any person " not having the right of killing the 

 game upon any land, nor having permission from the person having 

 such right," shall, on conviction, pay for every ^gg so taken or 

 destroyed, " such sum of money not exceeding 5s. as may be decided 

 by justices, together with the costs of conviction." 



Mr. Cordeaux in his "Birds of the Humber District" (p. 100, 

 note) quotes from " Thompson's History of Boston" the following 

 Fen laws, passed at " the court view of free pledges, and court- 



