98 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



device being chiefly nicks, lines, letters, crosses, circles, and stars, curiously dis- 

 posed. A description of the Swan marks alone would fill a large volume, it is a 

 literature to itself, and those who are interested in the subject will find full details 

 in Yarrell's "British Birds," vol. iv, 4th ed.; Stevenson's "Birds of Norfolk," 

 vol. iii; "The Athenaeum," August i8th, 1877, reprinted in the "Zoologist" of 

 the same year; and papers in the "Archaeological Journal," vol. xli, p. 281, and 

 vol. xlii, p. 17, by Mr. Edward Peacock. By an Act of Edward IV, it required 

 a freehold qualification to keep a Swan, excepting only the king's own son. The 

 punishment in Henry VII reign for stealing their eggs, was imprisonment for a 

 year and a day, and a fine at the king's will. All unmarked Swans were the 

 property of the king. The king had a chief Swan-herd — a " master of the king's 

 Swans" — and no person keeping Swans could appoint a new Swan-herd without 

 a license from the king's Swan-herd, and the fact being duly registered in his 

 book. The position of chief Swan-herd in those days must have been an exceed- 

 ingly lucrative one. 



In Thompson's " History of Boston," p. 625, is given the following fen laws, 

 passed at " the court view of free pledges, and court leet of the east, west, and 

 north fens, with their members, held at Revesby, 19th October, 1780," to the 

 effect that " no person shall bring up or take any Swan's eggs, or Crane's eggs, or 

 young birds of that kind, on pain of forfeiting for every offence three shillings 

 and fourpence." In old days the fine for stealing a Swan was paid in wheat, the 

 bird being hung in a house by the beak and just touching the ground, the delin- 

 quent then had to recoup the owner, by pouring wheat over the Swan till the 

 heap covered all the bird to the tip of its beak. 



In the olden days Swans, compared with other birds, were expensive luxuries. 

 At the wedding dinner of Gervase Clifton to Mary Neville (1530) the following 

 birds and their prices occur : — twelve Swans, each 6/- ; eight Cranes, each 3/4 ; 

 sixteen Heron-sews, each i/- ; ten Butters, or Bittern, each 1/2 ; at the same 

 dinner an Ox was 30/-, a Calf 3/-, a Lamb 1/6, a Wether 2/4, and Chickens 1/6 

 per dozen. 



The number of eggs laid by the female are greatly in excess of the wild 

 species, ten and twelve is not an unusual number, and seventeen has been recorded. 

 Mr. Stevenson, in the " Birds of Norfolk," mentions an instance of a very 

 exceptional produce of a pair, a fine young male and three-year old female, on 

 Surlingham Broad, as taken from the Swan-herd's book. In the year 1886 to 

 1873, inclusive, eighty-five eggs, and these produced eighty-two cygnets. A 

 marked Swan has been known to live for fifty years, and a tradition exists of a 

 Norfolk Swan reaching the extreme age of one hundred years. 



