THE SWANNERY AT ABBOTSBURY. 509 
south before really hard weather sets in. I own I was very much 
surprised to hear that every spring this colony of the Mute Swan 
is invariably joined by some members of the Hooper, for Selby 
distinctly says they refuse to associate with one another.* This 
year only two Hoopers appeared, but they were remarkably 
fine birds. Possibly the exceptional mildness of last winter may 
account for the paucity of numbers, for usually the visitants come 
in very much stronger force. They do not, however, stay long, 
but within a few weeks of their arrival take their departure, and 
are seen no more till the following season. That the Mute Swan 
and the Hooper are distinct species there is no need for me to 
affirm here; for, not to mention the well-known difference in the 
colouring of their respective beaks, the difference in note,t but, 
above all, the difference in anatomical structure, more particularly 
as regards the trachea or windpipe, are sufficiently distinguishing 
characteristics. 
Asked whether Lord Ichester ever used them for the table, our 
informant said. that about two hundred young birds were then in 
course of fattening. ‘The process pursued is to take the cygnets 
from the nest, just before they would naturally leave it; to place 
them in fresh-water ponds of small size, surrounded with high 
wattled hurdles, the ponds being so small that they have no room 
to take flight; to associate twenty cygnets in such a pond with 
one old Swan as a nurse; and to feed them with barley and 
barley-meal till they are ready for the table. To my enquiries 
whether the keeper did not often have violent altercations with the 
old birds while engaged in thus kidnapping the young, he said 
that the parents, and especially the old males, would show great 
fight and make desperate attempts to defend their young. They 
would come at him, he said, with wings and beak; but he never 
troubled about the beak; all he aimed at was to seize them by the 
wings and hold them tight, for they would otherwise strike very 
hard. The old popular notion that the stroke of a Swan’s wing will 
break a man’s arm is a delusion and a manifest exaggeration; but 
although long ago pointed out as such by Colonel Montagu, in 
the Supplement to his ‘ Ornithological Dictionary, like most other 
popular sayings, it has continued to flourish to this day. 
* <Tllustrations of British Ornithology,’ vol. ii., p. 283. 
+ “ Hocper,” or ‘“ Whooper,” from the note resembling the sound of the word 
“Hoop.” See Yarrell’s ‘ British Birds,’ vol. iii., p. 192 (Ard edition). 
