The Wild Duck 385 
is of very great use, and often employed as an orna- 
ment. The elegance of form which this bird displays, 
when, with his arched neck and half- displayed wings, 
he sails along the crystal surface of a tranquil stream, 
which reflects, as he passes, the snowy beauty of his 
dress, is worthy of admiration. Thomson describes the 
Swan in the following beautiful manner: 
The stately sailing Swan 
Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale, 
And arching proud his neck, with oary feet, 
Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier isle, 
Protective of his young." 
Swans have for ages been protected on the river 
Thames as royal property ; and it continues at this day 
to be accounted felony to steal their eggs : by this means 
their increase is secured, and they prove a delightful 
ornament to that noble river. Latham says the estima- 
tion in which they were held, in the reign of Edward 
IV., was such, that only those who possessed a freehold 
of the clear yearly value of five marks were permitted 
even to keep any. In those times, hardly a piece of 
water was left unoccupied by these birds, as they gratified 
the palate as well as the eye of their lordly owners 
of that period : but the fashion of those days has passed 
away, and Swans are by no means as common now as 
they were formerly, being by most people accounted a 
coarse kind of food, and consequently held in little esti- 
mation : but the Cygnets (so the young Swans are called) 
are still fattened for the table, and are sold very high, 
commonly for a guinea each, and sometimes more ; 
hence it may be presumed they are better food than is 
generally imagined. 
At Abbotsbury there was generally a noble Swannery, 
the property of the Earl of llchester, where six or seven 
hundred birds were kept, but the collection has of late 
been much diminished. The Swannery belonged an- 
ciently to the abbot, and, previously to the dissolution 
of monasteries, the Swans frequently amounted to double 
the above number. 
From the whiteness of this bird, the expression of a 
2c 
