AGE, HABITS, &C. 117 



used. Fifteen wild swans were shot January 1830, 

 by one man, in Shoreham harbour, and sold to the 

 furriers at five shillings each. Their flesh is no 

 longer in request as food, with the exception of 

 cygnets, or young swans, which are still fattened, at 

 Norwich particularly, for the Christmas feast, and 

 command the price of one guinea each. 



The swan feeds like the goose, and has the same 

 familiarity with its keepers, kindly and eagerly re- 

 ceiving bread which is offered, although it is a bird 

 of courage equal to its apparent pride, and both the 

 cock and hen are extremely dangerous to approach 

 during incubation, or whilst their brood is young, 

 as they have sufficient muscular force to break a 

 man's arm with a stroke of their wing. They both 

 labour hard in forming a nest of water plants, long 

 grass and sticks, generally in some retired part or 

 inlet of the bank of the stream or piece of water on 

 which they are kept. The hen begins to lay in Fe- 

 bruary, producing an egg every other day, until she 

 has deposited seven or eight, on which she sits six 

 weeks, although Buffbn says it is nearly two months 

 before the young are excluded. Swans' eggs are 

 much larger than those of a goose", white, and with 

 a hard, and sometimes tuberous shell. The cygnets 

 are ash-coloured when they first quit the shell, and 

 for some months after ; indeed, they do not change 

 their colour, nor begin to moult their plumage, until 

 twelve months old, nor assume their perfect glossy 

 whiteness until advanced in their second year. 



The CYGNOIDES from Guinea, commonly called 

 the SWAN- GOOSE, or the MUSCOVY-GOOSE, a sort of 



