MUTE SWAN. 163 
Hens. This is by some persons deemed an omen of a very 
deep summer flood.’ 
Yarrell relates the following similar account of one of these 
birds, as given to him by Lord Braybrooke. ‘This Swan was. 
eighteen or nineteen years old, had brought up many broods, 
and was highly valued in the neighbourhood. She exhibited, 
some eight or’ nine years past, one of the most remarkable 
instances of the powers of instinct that was ever recorded. 
She. was sitting on four or five eggs, and was observed to be 
very busy in collecting weeds, grasses, etc., to raise her nest; 
a farming man was ordered to take down half a load of haulm, 
with which she most industriously raised her nest and the eggs 
two feet and a half: that very night there came down a 
tremendous fall of rain, which flooded all the malthouses and 
did much damage. Man made no preparation, the bird did. 
Instinct prevailed over reason; her eggs were above, and only 
just above, the water.’ 
The ordinary number of eggs laid by this Swan is from 
two to four, sometimes five, “occasionally six, and not very 
rarely eight. In one instance as many as nine were laid, and 
all of them successfully hatched, in the Jephson Gardens, 
Leamington. It is possible, however! that two birds may 
have made use of the same nest, and, if so, the one under 
whose care all came, proved no ‘injusta noverea,’ but tended 
all with the like attention. At Beddington Park, in Norfolk, 
twelve eggs were deposited, and the brood all reared, in 1850. 
The nest of this Swan, when the first egg is laid, is small 
in size, but, as by degrees a larger family is expected, she 
adds to the size of it by clutching at every suitable material 
in its vicinity, and this even to a greater extent than appears 
to be, or indeed is, at all necessary. Instinct suggests this 
for a wise purpose; but where reason would say hold, enough,’ 
the former displays its inferiority by not knowing ‘where. to 
stop. 
The eggs are from five or six to seven or eight in number, 
older birds laying the larger, and younger the fewer numbers 
respectively. They are of a dull greenish white colour. 
Incubation continues for from five to six weeks. After 
being hatched for one day, they follow the guidance of their 
parents to the water, and have but little instruction, beyond 
that instinctively given by nature, in the art of swimming 
about and feeding themselves. Still, ‘The attention,’ says 
Meyer, ‘bestowed by thé old birds upon the young is incessant; 
