WAYSIDE NOTES. 453 



Game of Swans, yearly breeding, nesting, and coming there, were 

 held by Jobn Strangways at his death of the Queen in chief. 

 This property seems to have been granted to the Strangways in 

 the time of Henry VIII. ; for in an action by the Crown against 

 Joan, widow of Sir John Young, it was pleaded by the defendant, 

 who set up a prescriptive right to keep white swans unmarked, 

 that the Abbots were seized of the estuary-banks and soil in fee, 

 and that there was time out of mind a game or flight of wild 

 Swans and Cygnets (volatus cygnorum et cygnettorum) haunting 

 tbere which were not accustomed to be marked, and that in the 

 thirty-fifth year of Henry VIII. the King granted it to Giles 

 Strangways, who demised it for one year to the defendants." 

 This shows that in the tbirty-fifth year of Henry VIII. a swannery 

 had existed at Abbotsbury for a long time previously — that it bad 

 formerly been the property of the Abbots ; but it does not appear 

 for how long a time, or when, or by whom it was founded ; neither 

 cau I find any indication of the original date in Hutchins' 

 ' History,' above referred to, or in various papers which have 

 appeared in ' The Zoologist' on the subject by Mr. Harting, who 

 quotes the case above alluded to at greater length and more fully 

 than I have done (Zool. 18G5, p. 9671), or by the Eev. A. C. Smith 

 (Zool. 1877, p. 505), or by Mr. Gurney (Zool. 1878, p. 208). 



Perhaps this question savoured too much of Archaeology for 

 consideration at that time, but now that the pages of ' The 

 Zoologist' are open to the discussion of such subjects, someone 

 perhaps may take interest enough in the combination of Archae- 

 ology and Zoology to work it out. It would be interesting as 

 tending to indicate approximately the date at which the Mute 

 Swan was first introduced into England. Yarrell states that 

 this bird was first introduced from Cyprus in the time of 

 Eichard I. ; but may not the swans at Abbotsbury have been 

 introduced on the Fleet long before that time ? There seems no 

 particular reason why the Mute Swan should not, like the Pheasant, 

 bave been introduced by the Eomans ; at all events it would be 

 interesting to discover the origin of the Abbotsbury swannery, 

 and, if possible, to test the truth or otherwise of Yarrell's 

 statement. From the mention by Hutchins of Hoopers and a 

 smaller species of swan occasionally visiting the Fleet, I suppose 

 both Hoopers and Bewick's Swan may sometimes be found on 

 that piece of water in the winter. 



