1 6 8 Poachers a n d Poach ing. 



the swan is a perfect gourmand. My swan 

 and her crew (five cygnets) would dispose of 

 two million five hundred thousand eggs in that 

 time. Some of the best trout streams in the 

 country have been depopulated of fish by these 

 birds, and the Thames as a fishing river is now 

 greatly suffering from the number of swans 

 allowed upon it.* Both wild and domestic 

 ducks are destructive to spawn and almost live 



* " One had better throw open his pond or river to all the 

 poachers in the district than indulge in a taste for swans. If 

 any one doubts this, let him row up the Thames from Wey- 

 bridge to Chertsey, or on to Laleham, during the latter end of 

 the month of April or early in May, and take particular and 

 special notice of what the swans are doing, If he has still any 

 doubt, and likes to kill one or two and cut them open, he will 

 solve his doubts and do a service at the same time ; he may be 

 fined for it, but he will certainly suffer for a good action and in 

 a good cause. A swan can and will devour a gallon of fish- 

 spawn every day while the spawn remains unhatched, if he can 

 get it ; and it is easily found. I leave^ the reader to calculate 

 what the few hundreds (I might almost say thousands) on the 

 Thames devour in the course of two or three months. Their 

 greediness and voracity for fish-spawn must be witnessed to be 

 believed. If this were not so, the Thames ought to swarm to 

 excess with fish, whereas it is but poorly supplied. Here is a 

 little calculation. Suppose each swan only to take a quart of 

 spawn per diem, which is a very low average indeed; suppose 

 each quart to contain fifty-thousand eggs (not a tithe of what it 

 does contain). I am not speaking of salmon and trout here, 

 their ova being much larger; suppose only two hundred swans 

 (about a fourth, perhaps, of the number really employed) are at 



