The Swan 
Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I 
have done; for thou hast more of the wild-goose 
in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my 
whole five.’ 
The swan, perhaps in Shakespeare’s day 
more abundant in this country than it 1s 
now, was then regarded as a “Bird 
Royal”? which nobody could keep with- 
out a licence from the Crown, and 
provision for making a certain mark on 
the bird’s bill to denote its ownership. 
Our Sovereigns still maintain the Royal 
Swans on the Thames, and the young 
birds are regularly taken up in summer 
to receive the mark. To this bird full re- 
cognition has been paid by our dramatist. 
He places it before us in its usual watery 
domain, where its nest serves as a symbol 
of Britain set in the midst of the sea, “like a 
swan’s nest in a great pool.”’ He lets us see 
The swan her downy cygnets save, 
Keeping them prisoner underneath her wings.? 
1 Romeo and Juliet, 1. iv. 69. 2 Cymbeline, 11, iv. 138. 
81 Henry VI. v. iii. 56. 
85 
