ON SMALLER PONDS. 201 



Weybridge to Chertsey, or on to Laleham, during the 

 latter end of the month of April or early in May, and 

 take particular and especial notice of what the swans 

 are doing. If he has still any douht, and likes to 

 kill one or two and cut them open, he will solve his 

 douhts and do a service at the same time ; he may 

 be fined for it, but he will certainly suffer for a good 

 action and in a good cause. A swan can and wiLL 

 devour a gallon of fish-spawn every day while the 

 spawn remains unhatched, if he can get it, and it 

 is easily found. I leave the reader to calculate what 

 the few hundreds (1 might almost say thousands) on 

 the Thames devour in the course of two or threei 

 months. Their greediness and voracity for fish-spawn 

 must be witnessed to be believed. If this were not 

 so, the Thames ought to swarm to excess with fish, 

 whereas it is but poorly supplied.^ 



^ Here is a little calculation. Suppose each swan only to take 

 a quart of spawn per diem, which is a very low average indeed ; 

 suppose each quart to contain 60,000 eggs (not a tithe of what it 

 does contain) — I am not speaking of salmon or trout here, their ova 

 being much larger ; suppose only 200 swans (about a fourth, perhaps 

 of the number really employed) are at work at the spawn, and give 

 them only a fortnight for the period of their ravages. Now what is 

 the result we get? Why, a little total of 140,000,000. One hundred 

 and forty millions of eggs ! Suppose only half of those eggs to 

 become fish, and we have a loss of seventy millions of fish every 

 year to the River Thames — a heavy price to pay for the picturesque, 

 particularly when the reality may perhaps be doubled, or trebled, 

 or even quadrupled. 



