166 SWAN AND YOUNG—TURKEY-COCK-NURSE. [PARTII. 
was so vague, that I could do no more than form 
a conjecture as to their species. 
On the Thames last summer I was amused by 
watching an old Swan feeding her young ones, 
in what seemed to me a novel and ingenious man- 
ner. Sitting on the water with her breast against 
the bank, she gathered from it the grass as far over 
as she could reach, and then, turning round her 
long neck, threw it over her back to the cygnets, 
who seemed quite up to the mancuvre and were 
waiting and scrambling for it in the water behind 
her. My attention was called to it by the fisher- 
man who was with me, and who—though he 
had lived all his life by the banks of the Thames— 
said he had never witnessed it before. 
They have in Germany an odd, but useful, 
plan of pressing the cock Turkey into the service 
of the nursery, and making him take a share of 
the work, which he is naturally disposed to leave 
to his better halves. It is managed in this way :— 
When a “clutch”’ of eggs is ready, they are placed, 
with the cock Turkey, in a coop of such small 
dimensions that he has no choice but to sit upon 
them. At first he is let out occasionally for a 
short time to amuse himself, and then put back 
again, and obliged to continue his work of incu- 
