90 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



be happy till it gets it. In addition, it will only get 

 it in its own peculiar way, which is by "bibbling," 

 to use the words of the Norfolk gunners. It takes 

 the weed in its beak and sucks and works it between 

 its mandibles, just as ducks "bibble" in the muddy 

 margin of a ditch. 



To improvise the eggs of entomostraca and put 

 them on water-weeds is simply an impossibility, and 

 though we gave our cygnet the tips of rose-bushes 

 covered with green blight, which it at once washed 

 and " bibbled " and sucked so long as any blight was 

 left, this was a poor and scanty substitute. So it 

 had to be fed, i.e. crammed, with a weak mixture of 

 Gilbertson and Page's duck-meal, specially made for 

 young wild-ducks, and muddy Thames water. As it 

 threw away every scrap which it could, and as far as 

 it could, this was a messy and troublesome process. 

 The lady who fed it had to wear an apron up to her 

 chin. Also, as the little swan was intensely distressed 

 if it got any meal on its fluff, and made desperate 

 efforts to clean itself, instead of even trying to 

 swallow the food, it had to have a bib too, to keep 

 it clean and not too miserable. As it would take 

 very little food at a time, and woke up complain- 

 ing bitterly at all times of the night, the first three 

 days were rather critical, both for the cygnet and its 

 mistress, who began to show signs of exhaustion about 

 the same time as the little swan began to show equal 

 evidence that it had "turned the corner" and was 

 going to live to be an ornament to its country. As 

 it sat out on the lawn with all the gravity of a swan 



