MUTE SWAN. 339 



' butted on the left winge, a notch on the right side of the 

 beake near the eye, and a slit on the outer blade of the right 

 foot, and a tongue on the inner blade of the same foot/ Sir 

 John Shelley, of Michelgrove, and Sir Edward Bishop, had 

 their notches and slits. The Autocrat of the High Stream 

 received the customary Qs. 8d. of the latter for a new Swan- 

 mark, and seized Swans to the Earls of ArundelFs use, for 

 non-payment of the fee for the continuance of the mark/' 

 (Antiq. of Arundel, 1766. See Susses Archseol. Coll. 

 vol. xvii.) The public-house sign of '' The Swan with Two 

 Necks " is said to be derived from the two nicks used as the 

 Swan-mark of the Vintners' Company. 



The nest of this Swan is a very large structure, of weeds, 

 grass, &c., measuring some four or five feet across, and two 

 or three high, placed near the water, and on the approach of a 

 flood it is generally raised higher, both the birds being assi- 

 duously engaged in the work. This Swan is generally rather 

 silent, but when angry it hisses like the Common Goose, and 

 in pairing time utters a few not unmusical notes. It feeds 

 on aquatic plants, moUusks, water-insects, frogs, &c., and in 

 the breeding season is exceedingly pugnacious. The only 

 Swannery in the Kingdom is situated at the western extremity 

 of an estuary called the Fleet, opposite Abbotsbury, in Dor- 

 setshire, the property of the Earl of Ilchester. This is about 

 nine miles long, and from a quarter to half a mile broad. 

 There are records of this Swannery long previous to the 

 Reformation, when it was the property of the neighbouring 

 monastery, at the dissolution of which, Henry VIII. granted 

 it to Giles Strangway, an ancestor of the present owner. 

 In 1880 the number of Swans was over one thousand four 

 hundred ; but in the winter of that year the Fleet was frozen 

 throughout, during an exceedingly low spring-tide, when the 

 water-plants growing at the bottom, becoming entangled in 

 the ice, were torn up by their roots at the returning tide, 

 and many of the Swans either migrated or died, reducing 



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