THE WILD SWAN 



ONCE upon a time there appeared in a country 

 paper the following advertisement, which, for an 

 indefinite number of days, was the occasion of 

 torturing apprehension in the bosom of a certain 

 small boy : 



" REWARD. 5 will be paid for information 

 leading to the apprehension and conviction of the 

 person who, during; last week, STOLE the egg's 



from the swan's nest on Loch. Apply Estate 



Office." 



Stamp-collecting and book -collecting, it has 

 been said, are habits calculated to sap the 

 moral fibre in the finest natures. Egg-collect- 

 ing by youthful Britons gets in before the moral 

 nature has begun to develop. At the age of 

 thirteen the miscreant alluded to had formed a 

 collection of eggs which seemed to need nothing 

 to complete it but the splendid pale green oval 

 of the swan, and, like the Roc's egg in the tale of 

 Aladdin, the absence of this trophy reduced all 

 the rest to nothing, yea, vanity. So one moonlight 

 night in April he sallied forth on an expedition of 



truly marauding intent, tramped five miles, reached 



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