MB. T. SOUTHWELL ON THE ST. HELEN’S SWAN-PIT. 
271 
tremities in the air, searching for the grains which may have gone 
to the bottom, rise in the water flapping their extended wings ; or, 
with one foot turned over the back, leisurely prune and dress their 
plumage ; or, with head buried under the scapular feathers seek 
sweet and refreshing repose. Later in the season, when the 
cygnets have grown still larger and are assuming the white 
plumage, the Swan-pit presents an even more attractive appearance 
than in their earlier stage, and it is sad to think that by Christmas 
all will have fallen victims to tho spit, and the Swan-pit, late the 
scone of so much life and activity, will be dreary and deserted. 
When tho cygnets arrive at the Swan-pit they are worth about 
ten shillings each, but when fatted the value is two guineas. 
Mr. Cox, the master of the Hospital, however, receives cygnets for 
fatting at a charge of ono guinea each, — not too large a sum, 
considering the quantity of food they consume and the care 
required to bring them to maturity ; if purchased at the Swan-pit 
the price is two guineas. At their prime they weigh sometimes as 
much as 28 lbs., but usually, when dressed for the table about 
15 lbs. ; after Christmas they lose flesh, and are by no means so 
good for the table. 
In a recently published book, purporting to portray the 
manners and customs prevailing in the East Country in the latter 
part of the seventeenth century, Mrs. Dorothy Browne, the wife 
of tho celebrated Norwich physician, afterwards Sir Thomas 
Browne, is represented as lamenting that the cygnets on the spit 
(note the plural, and this at an impromptu supper !) testified “ by 
an odour too strong to be agreeable,” to their having been kept a 
trifle too long, a circumstance rendered not at all improbable from 
the fact of Mistress Browne's supper taking place in the month of 
March, whereas cygnets are only in season from October to the end 
of December ! 
Cygnets from the St. Helen’s Swan-pit have been sent to the 
tables of various crowned heads, and I believe to the Pope ; Her 
Most Gracious Majesty and the Prince of Wales having been 
frequent recipients. The following humourous receipt, “done into 
verse,” by the late Pev. J. C. Matchett, is sent with each Swan. 
I need not add that so noble a bird constitutes a dish literally fit 
to set before a king, tender and succulent, and Swan giblet soup is 
a pottage once tasted not soon to be forgotten. 
