94 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



but tliis is not done at tlie present time, and as a rule 

 the marks are not cut so deep as formerly, and therefore 

 are more often renewed. Letters or other signs, how- 

 ever deeply incised upon the upper mandible, will wear 

 out in time, but " nicks"* cut in the hard edge of the 

 mandible are never lost. Other private marks are occa- 

 sionally resorted to, as holes stamped through the web 

 of one foot, or the removal of a hind claw, right or 

 left ; and, in some cases, in marking and pinioning 

 cygnets, the pinion is removed, right or left, in accord- 

 ance with the marks on the beak. 



A particularly favourable season had produced at the 

 "upping" of 1871 more cygnets than were required for 

 fattening, and the surplus, therefore, having been 

 marked and pinioned were turned off again with their 

 parents. In following in the wake of the other boats, 

 we were now and then aware of the rough surgery 

 that had taken place by seeing the fluffy pinions of 

 the cygnets floating down the stream, the amputation 

 being effected at what may be termed the elbow-joint 

 of the wing, and on subsequently watching the opera- 

 tion performed upon five of them reserved for fattening 

 in a private pond, near the river, I could have 

 wished the knife had been sharper or the hands more 

 skilful as each bone was turned out of its socket with 

 a most unnecessary amount of bleeding, f Cygnets 

 when thus pinioned take much longer to fat, as they 



* Both in Norwich and Yarmouth we have the old public-house 

 sign of the swan with two necks, which, as Yarrell satisfactorily 

 shows, is a corruption of the swan with two nicks, in allusion to the 

 swan-mark of the Vintners' Company. 



f Mr. Dixon remarks " a skilful operator will feel for the joint, 

 divide the skin, and turn the bone neatly out of the socket. I 

 will allow him to shed just one drop of blood ; no more. * * * 

 Many cygnets are annually killed by the clumsy way in which 

 the wing is lopped off. They suffer from the shock to the nervous 

 system as much as from hemorrhage." 



