TAME CYGNETS 87 



credible stupidity about their nesting and nursery 

 arrangements. When one sees a hen swan reaching 

 out her neck as she sits on her eggs, and steadily 

 building up her nest, while heavy rain threatens and 

 there is a chance of a flood, it suggests sense and 

 foresight. Yet the same swan will never think of 

 picking up her cygnets and replacing them in the 

 nest if they fall out into the wet grass, and lie there 

 dying of cold, while she stolidly tries to hatch off an 

 addled egg. And an old cock swan will often kill 

 every one of his children in the autumn if they are 

 left on the same isolated piece of water with him. 



The curious limitation of swan character and brains 

 does not so seriously affect their offspring when the 

 nest is built on the flat banks of a shallow lake or on 

 a tideless stream. There the cygnets can almost take 

 care of themselves ; but if they get into any sort of 

 dilemma, the old birds seem to have no idea of helping 

 them out of it. 



The two swans which make Chiswick Eyot their 

 headquarters, and are the pair which nest lower 

 down the Thames, i.e. nearer to the City of London, 

 than any other, have exceptional difficulties to con- 

 tend with. The tide falls some fifteen feet, and at low 

 water, if they have a brood, and insist on taking 

 the little birds up on to the eyot, they have to scramble 

 up a very high and steep bank, with weltering pools 

 of mud below. For several years these birds built a 

 nest and sat with a patience that deserved success, and 

 yet the eggs were always stolen or addled. Then 

 four cygnets were hatched, but only survived a day, for 



