MUTE SWAN 



67 



and other parts of northern Europe, and western Asia, it occasionally 

 utters a loud trumpet-like note, especially in the spring. These swans 



live to a ripe old age, and there are records 

 of birds reaching ages from 50 to 100 years; 

 a common age, however, according to Dres- 

 ser (1880), seems to be about 30 or 40 years. 

 Any of these swans that are found along 

 our coasts are those that have originally 

 broken away from domesticated flocks and 

 established themselves in the wild state. The 

 male swan is a "cob," the female a "pen," 

 the voung in its first year a "cygnet," and in its second year, a "grey 

 bird." 



Beautiful, decorative, and graceful on water, the swans are awkward 

 and clumsy on land, to which they resort unwillingly and for short 

 periods only. Domesticated and tame as these birds become through 

 their association with man, they are often most ferocious. There are 

 records in England of the swans of the parks attacking young children 

 and dogs approached too closely. Some were dragged into the water 

 and killed by the angry birds. 



In England the swan is regarded as a royal bird, and no subject can 

 own it except by grant from the 

 crown. With this privilege the crown 

 also grants a "swan-mark" which 

 consists of a letter or some device that 

 is cut into the upper mandible of the 

 bird. This matter of the ownership 

 of swans is an ancient custom, and the 

 first enactment was in the reign of 

 Edward IV, in the year 1482, when it 

 was declared that "no person what- 

 ever, except the King's son, should 

 have any swan-mark or game of swans of his own, or any other to his use, 

 except he hath freehold lands and tenements to the clear yearly value of 

 five marks" (Dresser, 1880). To this day the swans on the Thames belong 

 to the King and to two city companies, the Dyers' and Vinters' Com- 

 panies, all three having district swan-marks on their respective birds. 

 Every year the sw T ans are taken up from the w r ater, the cygnets marked 

 and the marks of the old birds renewed where this may be necessary; at 

 the same time the young cygnets are pinioned to prevent them from fly- 

 ing away. The catching and marking of the swans in this manner is 

 known as "swan-upping," and is conducted with some ceremony by the 

 Swan-Uppers or Swan-Hoppers, who wear a special uniform. 



These swans pair for life. Young pens do not lay until their second 

 year and often not until three years old; they start by laying from 3 to 

 5 eggs in the first year of breeding, up to 7 in the second year, and when 



