THE BIRDS OF HAMPSHIRE. 
Genus — Cygnus. 
164. Cygnus olor. Mute Swan. 
" . . . . And the barge with oar and sail 
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan 
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, 
Ruffles her pure, cold plume, and takes the flood 
With swarthy webs." 
Tennyson! s Morte Arthur" 
Resident in a more or less domesticated condition. A 
great many are reared and live under entirely natural con- 
ditions, particularly on some of the streams near the coast. 
On the Beaulieu River most of the swans are perfectly 
wild and have never been confined in any way ; numbers 
of them may be seen on the coast during the time of the 
year they are not nesting, feeding on the mudlands. 
There is no reason why many of the mute swans that 
visit the coast in winter should not be genuine wild birds, 
for as such they are found as near to our shores as 
Denmark and Sweden, and their wariness and their evident 
alarm at the proximity of human beings favour the sup- 
position that they are not tamed birds. (Munn.) 
A swannery is formerly said to have existed on the 
Avon, near Lord Normanton's estate at Somerley, but it is 
not now in existence. In 1625 John Taylor, the water 
poet, made a voyage in his wherry from London to Christ- 
church, and thence up the Avon, to Salisbury, to ascertain 
if there were any impediments to navigation ; and he tells 
us : " as I passed up the Avon at the least 2000 swans, 
like so many pilots, swam in the deepest places before me 
and showed me the way." ^ 
* Yarrell. 4th edition, vol. iv. 
