196 RECREATIONS OF A NATURALIST 



ness of the swans, the drenching spray cast up by 

 powerful pinions in the frantic but unavailing 

 effort to "run the blockade," and the gaping crowd 

 of amused bystanders on the banks, form a tout 

 ensemble, the picturesqueness of which may be more 

 readily imagined than described. 



At the time of penning these remarks, although 

 the annual ceremony was long over (having taken 

 place in July), the official returns of the number of 

 swans caught and marked had not been rendered 

 by the swanherds, so that a comparison of the 

 statistics for 1895 with those of 1894 had conse- 

 quently to be deferred. Even on the last day of 

 October the swanherd of the Vintners' Company, 

 Mr W. T. Abnett, whose son had succeeded to the 

 office of Royal Swanherd, wrote that he had only 

 just finished marking, and that there were still two 

 broods of unmarked birds on the river — one at 

 Temple, the other at Hambledon, near Henley — 

 which eluded capture by working up the ditches and 

 back-waters, where it is difficult to get at them. 



Omitting these two broods of five birds each 

 from his calculations, he reports that the number of 

 swans on the river in 1895, old and young, was 

 ascertained to be 411, of which 145 belonged to the 

 Queen, 161 to the Vintners' Company, and 105 to 

 the Dyers' Company. 



As compared with the returns for 1893 and 

 1894, the total number is somewhat below the 

 average. This will be made clear by the following 

 tables, which show approximately the distribution 

 of the swans on the river at different stages 



