MUTE SWAN. 69 



paired on Surlingham Broad with, a female in her third 

 year : 



Year. Eggs. Cygnets. 



1866 9 8 



1867 10 9 



1868 11 11 



1869 10 10 



1870 11 11 



1871 11 11 



1872 11 11 



1873 12 11 



85 82 



I can myself speak to the number of cygnets brought 

 off by this pair during the last four years, as the birds 

 have regularly nested, or " timbered," as the marshmen 

 term it, on a part of Surlingham Broad known as "King's 

 Fleet," where I have seen them repeatedly with eleven 

 young ones. In the summer of 1870 I saw a hen bird 

 on Bargate, said to be eight years old, which had twelve 

 cygnets, but in this case one egg had been added to her 

 own from another nest.* In like manner Rich once knew 

 of thirteen cygnets hatched by one female, but as the 

 same bird laid only eleven eggs the next year, when 

 he had the charge of her, the probability is that she 

 hatched at least two foster cygnets in the previous 

 summer. With cygnets, however, as with lambs, much 

 depends upon a favourable season, and Mr. Dixon 

 alludes to "a common notion in Norfolk that the 

 cygnets cannot be hatched till a thunder storm comes 



sent to the Norwich swan pit, frcm artificial ponds or lakes to be 

 fattened, are invariably smaller ; but the Blickling swans, having a 

 wide range on the river, are always fine birds. 



* It is stated by Morris that " at Beddington Park, in Norfolk, 

 twelve eggs were deposited, and the brood all reared in 1850 "; but 

 in the first place there is no such locality in this county, and, 

 secondly, no evidence that they were all laid by the same bird. 



