MUTE SWAN. 195 



the most domesticated Swans to do so, but the ease with which 

 this bird rose^ together with its great shyness, and vigilant, 

 wary disposition, all pointed to its being a wild bird. 



' In England the Swan is said to be a bird royal, in which 

 no subject can have property when at large in a j)ublic river 

 or creek, except by grant from the crown. In creating this 

 privilege the crown grants a Swan-mark.^ (Yarrell.) The 

 same author gives a representation of the Swan-mark used by 

 the Corporation of the City of Oxford, taken from a rare 

 tract on Swans and Swan-marks, printed in 1632, and writes, 

 ' The city of Oxford has a game of Swans by prescription ; 

 and in the sixteenth century, when a state dinner was not 

 complete unless a Swan was included in the bill of fare, the 

 game of Swans was rented upon an engagement to deliver 

 yearly four fat Swans, and to leave six old ones at the end of 

 the term. By the Corporation books it also appears that in 1557 

 barley was provided for the young birds at fourteen pence a 

 bushell, and that tithes were then paid of Swans/ {Ilutory of 

 British Birds, 4th edit., vol. iv.) 



By the kind permission of the proprietors of the above work, 

 I am enabled to reproduce here the representation of the Cor- 

 j)oration Swan-mark. 



Y~^ 



In a report made in 1 854 by Mr. Hester, the then Town 

 Clerk of Oxford, the following entries occur. ' The City had 

 anciently a Game of Swans, respecting which there are many 

 entries in the old books. The Swans seem to have been fed 

 during the winter, and to have had nests in Christ Church 

 Meadow and other places .... Messrs. Hall and Tawney^s 

 Brewery stands on an island called Swan's nest, and within 

 living memory the proprietors of the brewery kept up the 



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