166 SWAN AND YOUNG TUEKEY-COCK-NUESE. [PAETII. 



was so vague, that I could do no more than form 

 a conjecture as to their species. 



On the Thames last summer I was amused by 

 watching an old Swan feeding her young ones, 

 in what seemed to me a novel and ingenious man- 

 ner. Sitting on the water with her breast against 

 the bank, she gathered from it the grass as far over 

 as she could reach, and then, turning round her 

 long neck, threw it over her back to the cygnets, 

 who seemed quite up to the manoeuvre and were 

 waiting and scrambling for it in the water behind 

 her. My attention was called to it by the fisher- 

 man who was with me, and who though he 

 had lived all his life by the banks of the Thames 

 said he had never witnessed it before. 



They have in Germany an odd, but useful, 

 plan of pressing the cock Turkey into the service 

 of the nursery, and making him take a share of 

 the work, which he is naturally disposed to leave 

 to his better halves. It is managed in this way : 

 When a "clutch " of eggs is ready, they are placed, 

 with the cock Turkey, in a coop of such small 

 dimensions that he has no choice but to sit upon 

 them. At first he is let out occasionally for a 

 short time to amuse himself, and then put back 

 again, and obliged to continue his work of incu- 



