The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-08-17 00:00:00

THE THAMES SWANS.

"Air. Styles, the Swanherd to the Crown, has issued bills
offering a reward for information that may lead to the con-
viction of persons for killing, stealing, or maiming the Royal
swans on the Thames or destroying their eggs. A similar
notice has also been circulated by the Vintner's Company
with regard to their swans." . . . In noticing the above,
the Daily Telegraph, in a leader, remarks:—
. . . . The public may fairly ask what the Vintners'
Company have to do with the swans on the Thames;
but the fact is that they own a considerable proportion
of them. Her Majesty's " game " of swans is the
largest on the river, and next in point of numbers
come those of the Vintners' and Dyers' Companies.
Their privilege of ownership dates back four centuries,
and, though still a privilege, has lost much of
the special pomp and circumstance that at first
attended the right of holding swans, when no
man who could not show a substantial income
from landed property might possess a single bird.
Indeed, in mythology, heraldry, history, and on the
table also, the swan has always occupied a place of
exclusive honour. Apollo placed it among the stars
and crowned it; our Plantagenets bore it on their
shields; our statute-books makes provision for its
care and management; while no civic feast a century
or so ago would have been complete without the roast
or baked swan. From many points, therefore, the
bird may claim our notice, but from none more promi-
nently than the picturesqueness of its life and the indi-
viduality of its character.

The." peaceful monarch of the lake," as a poet—with
the quaint ignorance of bird-life that marks so much of
what poets have said of birds—has styled the swan,
possesses a most irascible temper, and, indeed a bear,
after a visit to a beehive, would not be less affable to
strangers than this bird to those who chance to go near
his island home. The preference for islands as breed-
ing-places marks the generalship of the bird, for a swan
on shore is, proverbially, a poor creature, but, by
giving himself a clear waterway all round his nest, he
takes up a strategic position which, for all common
enemies, is practically unassailable. A blow
from his wing, when the male puts his heart
into it, has a force which, to be understood, must be
experiencel. By comparing it with a kisk from a
horse, so wide a margin is given as to the degree of
violence employed that the simile becomes practieally
useless; but if we say that, by a single stroke, the
swan has been known in one case to dislocate an arm,
In another to break a wrist, the power of its pinion
may be approximately gauged. At all times punctilli-
ous as to its personal dignity, and ready to resent with
promptitude any breach of aquatic etiquette by the
commonalty of the wasers—the "lower orders "of the
goose, duck, and teal kinds—the swan displays an
especial irritability during the breeding season.
The male at this period never goes far from the
nest and its treasures, and every device to tempt
him out of sight of his home fails—every de-
vice but one, the challenge of a rival or the intrusion
of a stranger. Hot pursuit is then his one thought;
and in all the bird world, perhaps, nor study for the
artist could be fad more beautiful than the angry
swan when, eveirplume erect with excitement, and
the whole body instinct with eager passion, it drives
its way through the water towards the object of
its hatred. At other times the male—known to
swan-keepers as "the cob "—cruises round his
island citadel, or floats, like some man-of-war on
harbour duty, just off the landing-place, reliev-
ing his mate at intervals in her place upon the
eggs or stepping on shore to assure himself that
all is right. The female bird—technically called
"the pen "—has equal claims to notice both for
personal bravery and parental solicitude. When neces-
sary she joins her lord in battle and pursuit, but, rely-
ing as a rule upon his unaided prowess, attends to her
domestic duties with exemplary diligence. So soon as
the cygnets are hatched, she sometimes carries them
to the water, and in after life, when the young brood
encounter difficulties of current or reed, the mother
constantly comes to their assistance. Sinking herself
till her back is flesh with the water' she allows the
cygnets to climb upon her, and on this pretty raft
conveys them where she wishes to go. Such tender-
ness, however, extends only to a twelvemonth, for
when the nursery is filled again the last year's brood
are driven away to take care of themselves.
Every stream upon which swans are domiciled is
divided by the different colonies into domains,
as strictly defined and as jealously defended as the
Livingstone River by the cannibal tribes that inhabit
its banks. To transgress a frontier is to challenge
hostilities; but pursuit, just as with the African
savages, extends no further than the neutral line that
demarcates the possessions of the pursuer and pursued,
save, of course, in those exceptional cases where the
insult is deemed expiable by mortal combat alone.
Apart, however, from its interesting habits, the swan
arrests attention because it is an especial favourite of
the poets, and also as a bird about which our legisla-
tion has constantly concerned itself. With regard
to the first, the nightingale, skylark, eagle, and
dove can alone claim precedence of. the swan, for
from Homer to Tennyson every poet who has gone
to the bird world for his similes has utilised
it But an acquaintance with natural history and
the gift of poetry—except in such marked exceptions
as Keats, Tennyson, Longfellow, Scott, and a very few
others—have unfortunately been rarely allied; and, in
the case of the swan, only the most salient and least
suggestive features have been pressed into service—its
whiteness of plumage, the grace of its motion, and its
mythical song before death—" the sad dirge of her
certain ending "—a myth so current in Egypt that
this bird stood for music in the hieroglyphic charac-
ter. Among swans in general, these of the Thames
have from Aldrovandus in prose and Spenser in
verse down to the present day, earned special men-
tion; but it is only because they were " snowy " or
"milk-white," or silver," or because, they were
"stately sailing," or because, "death-divining,"
they "awakened the inspired strain." The swan,
however, as we have seen, admits of a more poetical
handling, even without having recourse to fable or to
the tales of the old-world mythology of Cycnus and
Apollo, and the rest; for few birds present, in their
circumstances of life and character, so many points
inviting the poet's notice.
In its other aspects, as a bird of privilege and legis-
lative note, our national records abound with curious
references to the swan. Cyprus claims to have given
our names this feathered geace, for history records
how Cceuis de-Lion sent them thence in the twelfth
century. They were soon aeclimatised, and their pos-
session was everywhere so highly valued that at last
our Kings created a Royal monopoly in the splendid
fowl. It is, therefore, the sturgeon among birds, and
no subject, except by express grant from the Crown,
can claim rights of property in it when swimming on
public water. With this permission the Crown grants
a "swan-mark,' and on the river Witham alone
ninety-seven different swan-marks were in existence
half a century ago. The theft of a swan's egg
was punished by statute with a year's imprisonment,
together with fine at the Royal pleasure; while for
stealing the bird itself the penalty was very severe,
and adjudged by a special commission. To prevent
these offences was instituted the office of King's Swan.
herd, or "Master of the King's Swans." with a sub-
ordinate staff in charee of especial rivers and meres.
These officers had right of inspection over all private
swanneries, or "games" of swans throughout the
kingdom, and, except under their supervision, no
cyenets could be marked by their owners, or any
exchange or increase of their birds be negotiated.
Every detail of their management was thus care-
fully provided for, and any lapse from the re-
gulations enacted resulted in the forfeiture of the
whole swannery to the King. The Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge, as also Eton School, possess
by prescription the right to keep games of swans,
and from the swan-marks recorded some two
thousand other grants of the same privilege have
at various periods been made to private individuals
or public bodies. The Royal swan-mark in use at the
present day dates from the reign of George III.; but
her Majesty claims property in only some two
hundred and fifty birds, whereas, a century and a
half ago, "his Highness' game of swans " contained
used o n g
tpnr private t ea
nsdw
probablya n ne r i e s
still
largest nhe
kingdom
Am
is, that of Abbotsbury, the property of the Earl of
eys
i thousands.
t
Ilchester, in the estury formed by the Island of Port-
land and the Chesil Bank, the larger number of
the birds belonging to it, being due to the especial
privilege granted to the Abbey of Abbotsbury to seize
swans not marked. Chief among the liabilities at-
taching to the ownership of swans was the provision
of plump young birds for the Royal table when-
ever demanded, or for the delectation of the re-
presentatives of Majesty when on circuit or
other official business in the neighbourhood. The
receipes for cooking the bird were, of course, numerous
and elaborate, and at all banquets the swan
" standard " held the place of honour. At the present
day, however, they are too highly valued for "the
grace they lend the brook" to find their way often
into the poulterers' market. This same beauty pleads
also for tender treatment for them, and it will be a
cause for general satisfaction when the cruel process
still employed in marking them is abandoned.