210 THE WILD-FOWLER. 



eodem Eot., an. 1 H. IV., p. 6, No. 14, a grant was made to J. 

 Fenn, to survey and keep all wild swans unmarked, ita quod de pro- 

 ficuo respondeat ad Scaccarium. By which it appears, the Queen 

 may make g-rants of wild swans unmarked in any particular district,* 

 though it is a privilege which has not been exercised through many 

 years. 



According to old tradition, as well as the authority of Sir Edward 

 Coke, it was formerly the law that he who stole a swan, lawfully 

 marked, in an open and common river, the same swan, or another, 

 was hung in a house by the beak ; and he who stole it, in recompense 

 thereof, was obliged to give the owner so much wheat as would com- 

 pletely cover the bird, by putting and tiu'ning the corn over the head 

 of the swan until it was entirely hidden in the wheat.f 



It is felony to take swans which are lawfully marked, though they 

 be at large. I And it is the same as to unmarked swans, if they are 

 domesticated or kept in water near a dwelling-house, or on a manor 

 or other private property. 



A recent case of swan-stealing was tried before Mr. Baron Chan- 

 nell, at the Spring Assizes of the present year (1859), at Reading. A 

 prisoner named Lovejoy was convicted of stealing a swan, the pro- 

 perty of the Wardens and Commonalty of the Mystery of Dyers. 

 The charter of the Company, granted in the reign of Queen Anne, 

 was put in evidence, to prove the title of the Dyer's Company, as 

 alleged in the indictment -, and the swan-marker proved the mark of 

 the Company. The learned Judge held, upon the authority of Lord 

 Hale,§ that a swan, though at large, and a bird ferce naturae, was, 

 under certain circumstances, the subject of larceny, as in the present 

 case — marked and pinioned. 



Formerly, the punishment for stealing swan's eggs from the nest 

 was imprisonment for a year and a day, with a fine at the will of the 

 King.ll 



As the law now stands, persons not having the right of killing 

 game upon any land, nor having permission from the person entitled 

 to siKjh right, are prohibited by statute from taking or destroying 

 the nests or eggs of swans, under a penalty not exceeding five- 

 shillings for every egg. IF 



* Keg. 1^ Lady Young, 7 Rep., 18. f 7 Co. Rep., 17. 



J Dalt, c. 156. § Vide Hale's Pleas of the Crown, vol. i., p. 511. 



11 11 Hen. VII., cap. xvii. ^ 1 and 2 Wni. IV., cap. xxxii., s. 24. 



