88 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



they got out of the nest while the hen swan calmly sat 

 on, and, though replaced twice by kind friends who 

 got very wet and muddy in doing so, they fell out 

 again before night, and as neither swan thought of 

 picking them up, they were all dead next morning. 

 Next year the swans refused to use a good high nest 

 made for them, which would have raised their eggs 

 out of reach of the spring-tides, and kept to one of 

 their own. The result was that the bird was twice 

 floated off her nest and all the eggs but one spoiled. 

 Strange to say, this egg hatched, and for a whole day 

 it was just possible to hear the little piping voice of 

 the cygnet, which the bird kept under her. Next day 

 she left the nest at high water and took the little bird 

 for a swim. When a cygnet is tired its instinct is to 

 climb on to the old swan's back, but the stupid swan 

 did not give it a " leg up " (swans do this by putting 

 out their broad webbed foot, on to which the cygnets 

 first scramble), but kept giving the cygnet her " wash." 

 She soon returned to the island, and as the tide was 

 still high, the infant managed to scramble up after her 

 and into the nest. 



Next day the swan brought the cygnet down to the 

 river at half ebb, and kept it there until the channel 

 below was dry, and the steep bank, about twenty 

 times as high as the cygnet, had to be climbed. The 

 little creature scrambled up part of the way, and then 

 rolled down and fell on its back in the mud. Now, 

 little swans are built like a flat-iron or a Dutch barge, 

 and when once on their backs can no more get up than 

 can a fat sheep, a fact which we discovered soon after we 



