426 



8 



ages ; and his statements may, I think, in some degree account for the strange discrepancy in the 

 works of British ornithologists as to the number of eggs laid by the Mute Swan. 



" The wide range afforded the Swans on the Yare, with the abundant supply of their natural 

 diet, accounts to some extent, no doubt, for the very large number of Cygnets reared within our 

 civic boundaries. On this point Mr. Dixon states that in one year, on that portion of the Yare 

 next to his late residence at Cringleford, three pairs of Swans had each a brood of nine Cygnets, 

 which he considered above the average ; but he had even known seven reared on a very small 

 moat. On the Yare, below Norwich, and on the adjacent broads, allowing for accidents and the 

 difference in laying between young and old females, I believe seven to be about the average 

 of young hatched, though many a proud mother there launches her little fleet of ten or even 

 eleven Cygnets." 



Mr. Benzon informs me that in Denmark, where this Swan breeds in a wild state, it almost 

 always makes its nest in a place where it is quite surrounded by water, such as a small island 

 in a lake or a large tussock rising out of the water near the shore. The nest is large, is 

 frequently raised three feet above the surface of the water, and is from four to five feet wide. 

 The eggs are deposited in May, and vary in number from five to eight. Eggs in Mr. Benzon's 

 collection vary in size from 112 by 72 to 125 by 80 millimetres. 



The food of the Swan consists almost entirely of the soft starchy portions of aquatic plants, 

 of insects and insect-larvae, snails, and worms, and also, it is said, of frogs ; but it seldom catches 

 fish ; and though it has been accused of feeding on fish-spawn, there appears to be no direct 

 proof of the justice of this allegation. Mr. Stevenson, however, in stating that he has no 

 evidence by dissection that Swans do eat spawn of our river fish, adds that " the testimony of 

 our broadmen is so far confirmatory of the watchers on the Thames that, whilst they acquit the 

 old Swans of eating the spawn themselves, they assert that they pall up the weeds with spawn 

 on for their young ones. Whether correct or not, however, on this point, it is undoubtedly in 

 May and June (when the roach and bream enter the broads and dykes in shoals to deposit their 

 spawn) that the marshmen invariably find both old and young Swans collected together in these 

 shallow waters busily foraging amongst the herbage under the banks of the stream where spawn 

 had been previously noticed." It is said that the Swan is of great service in keeping down the 

 American weed Anacharis alsinastrum, which is such a pest in our rivers and canals; and 

 Mr. Stevenson was informed by Rich that a pair of Swans which, at Surlingham, had strayed 

 from the broad to a marsh-dyke near his house filled with this weed, cleared the channel very 

 effectually in a short time. 



In a domesticated state the Mute Swan is said to attain a great age. Naumann states that 

 there are instances on record of Swans reaching the age of from 50 to 100 years ; and in the 

 ' Morning Post' of the 9th July 1840, there is an account of the death, from an accident, of a 

 Swan on the waters of St. James's Park, which is said to have been hatched about the year 1770. 

 Mr. Stevenson, however, says that, judging from the experience of the oldest swanherds living, 

 or from the hearsay evidence of their predecessors, the Swan appears rarely to live longer than 

 from thirty to forty years, and the oldest birds now on the Yare are not more than from ten to 

 fourteen years old. 



Strictly speaking, this Swan is certainly not mute (though compared with Cygnus musicus 



