OCCASIONAL NOTES. 445 
the Act, in several parts of Devon, where previously they had been getting 
very scarce. This I hope is the case throughout the country, for I have 
noticed that in Hampshire they are also gradually increasing. The 
“‘siimmer visitors” certainly arrived here no earlier than they did in 
Hants ; in fact a comparison of dates would indicate that the bulk of them 
were later, although perhaps they were rather backward in their movements 
this season on account of the cold and winter-like spring, if indeed that at 
all affects their migration, which I somewhat question, for it is certain that 
a mild spring is not always indicative of their early arrival, any more than 
a cold spring retards their flight. I did not see any Swifts until May 8rd, 
when I observed three coming up in a direct line from Torbay, and this 
would be several days later than I have recorded their first appearance for 
the past nine years at home; in fact I generally observe them between the 
14th and 23rd of April.—G. B. Corsin (Ringwood, Hants). 
Swan-MarKs.— The Manuscript Department of the British Museum 
has lately acquired, for the Egerton Library, two interesting manuscripts 
illustrating the history of marking Swans, and a short notice of them will, 
we think, be not unacceptable to our readers. The first is No. 2412, a 
small quarto paper book of eighty-nine folios, written apparently in a hand 
of the seventeenth century. It commences with an alphabetical list of the 
owners of the marks, among whom appear the King and Queen, the Dukes 
of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Richmond, Earls of Huntingdon, Essex, Oxford, 
Sussex, Surrey, and Leicester, with a large number of noble and private 
owners, amounting in the aggregate to several hundred. The diagrams of 
the marks follow, arranged in double columns, of six marks each to a page. 
A large proportion of the owners have two marks, and now and then three 
are attributed to the same possessor. Although the collection is a com- 
pilation of the time already referred to, it evidently incorporates some older 
work of the same nature, for among the names of Swan-owners occur the 
Prior of Spalding and the Abbot of Peterborough. The volume is inscribed 
with the autograph of Samuel Knight, a former owner of the book. The 
other manuscript, Egerton 2413, is an oblong octavo in vellum, containing 
thirty-eight folios, with double columns, of six marks each on either side, 
making a total of about eight hundred marks ; some of the spaces having 
been left unappropriated. From the commencing mark being attributed to 
«J. R.,” which in the previous manuscript is given to “ The Kinge,” there 
is little difficulty in fixing the date of the production of the book. These 
two manuscripts, lately acquired, are evidently copies of an older work, and 
it will be useful to mention here a few notes of similar records extant in the 
British Museum. In Harley MS. 4383, at folio 217b, is a memorandum of 
«© A Commission directed to al maners Shireffes, Eschetours, Baillieffes, 
Constables, Swanneherdes, and all hauyng the Rule of freshe Ryuers and 
waters in Somersetshire, especially in the freshe waters or Ryuers of 
