THE CYGNET 
The Swan has a wonderful instinct for placing 
her nest above high-water mark, so that floods cannot 
wash it away or addle the eggs. Once a tame and 
very favourite Swan, who was sitting on four or 
five eggs, was noticed to be busy collecting weeds 
and grasses to raise her nest. Thinking that the 
bird had some good reason for doing this, her owner 
ordered a farming man to take down to her a load of 
haulm, of which the Swan made use, raising her nest 
quite two and a half feet higher than it had been before. 
That very night there was a tremendous fall of 
rain which flooded many out-houses, and did great 
damage. The Swan’s nest, however, was above, but 
only just above, the water, and her eggs remained 
unharmed. 
When the Cygnets are a year old their parents 
drive them away, and they have to start life on their 
own account. Their food consists of the roots and 
leaves of water plants, and insects and their larvae. 
Perhaps their worst habit, in the eyes of man, is a 
tremendous appetite for the spawn of fish, which 
they devour by the quart. 
The Swan has been known to live to the age of 
fifty years. 
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