SWAN 929 
p. 273); but the assertion is very questionable, and the supposition 
that they are allied to the Ampelide (WAXWING), though possibly 
better founded, has not as yet been confirmed by any anatomical 
investigation. An affinity to the Indian and Australian Artamus 
(the species of which genus are often known as Wood-Swallows, or 
Swallow-Shrikes) has also been suggested; and it may turn out 
that this genus, with its neighbours, may be the direct and less 
modified descendants of a generalized type, whence the Hirundinidx 
have diverged ; but at present it would seem as if the suggestion 
originated only in the similarity of certain habits, such as swift 
flight and the capacity of uninterruptedly taking and swallowing 
insect-food on the wing. 
Swallows are nearly cosmopolitan birds, inhabiting every consider- 
able country except New Zealand, wherein only a stray example, 
presumably from Australia, occasionally occurs. 
SWAN (A.-8. Swan and Swon, Icel. Svanr, Dutch Zwaan, Germ. 
Schwan), a large swimming-bird, well known from being kept in a 
half-domesticated condition throughout many parts of Europe, 
whence it has been carried to other countries. In England it was 
far more abundant formerly than at present, the young, or Cygnets,! 
being highly esteemed for the table, and it was under especial 
enactments for its preservation, and regarded as a “ Bird Royal” 
that no subject could possess without licence from the crown, the 
granting of which licence was accompanied by the condition that 
every bird in a “game” (to use the old legal term) of Swans should 
bear a distinguishing mark of ownership (cygninota) on the bill. 
Originally this privilege was conferred on the larger freeholders 
only, but it was gradually extended, so that in the reign of Elizabeth 
upwards of 900 distinct Swan-marks, being those of private persons 
or corporations, were recognized by the royal Swanherd, whose 
jurisdiction extended over the whole kingdom. It is impossible 
here to enter into further details on this subject, interesting as it is 
from various points of view.” It is enough to remark that all the 
1 Here, as in so many other cases (ef. PIGEON, p. 723), we have what may be 
called the ‘‘table-name” of an animal derived from the Norman-French, while 
that which it bore when alive was of Teutonic origin. I find Yarrell’s assertion, 
as to the use of Cop and PEN, on which I threw doubt (p. 92), confirmed by 
pes (NV. Engl. Dict. ii. p. 559). 
2 At the present time the Queen and the Companies of Dyers and vi intners still 
maintain their Swans on the Thames, and a yearly expedition is made in the month 
of July or August to take up the young birds—thence called ‘‘Swan-upping” 
and corruptly ‘‘Swan-hopping”—and mark them. The largest Swannery in 
England, indeed the only one worthy of the name, is that belonging to Lord 
Ilchester, on the water called the Fleet, lying inside the Chesil Bank on the 
coast of Dorset, where from 700 to double that number of birds may be kept—a 
stock doubtless too great for the area, but very small when compared with the 
numbers that used to be retained on various rivers in the country. The Swanpit 
59 
