Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/471

Rh the Act, in several parts of Devon, where previously they had been getting very scarce. This I hope is the case throughout the country, for I Imve noticed that in Hampshire they are also gradually increasing. The " Slimmer visitors " certainly arrived here no earlier than they did in Hants; in fact a comparison of dates would indicate that the bulk of them were later, although perhaps they were rather backward in their movements this season on account of the cold and winter-like spring, if indeed that at all affects their migration, which I somewhat question, for it is certain that a mild spring is not always indicative of their early arrival, any more than a cold spring retards their flight. I did not see any Swifts until May 3rd, when I observed three coming up in a direct line from Torbay, and this would be several days later than I have recorded their first appearance for the past nine years at home; in fact I generally observe them between the 14th and 23rd of April.— (Ringwood, Hants).

—The Manuscript Department of the British Museum has lately acquired, for the Egerton Library, two interesting manuscripts illustrating the history of marking Swans, and a short notice of them will, we think, be not unacceptable to our readers. The first is No. 2412, a small quarto paper book of eighty-nine folios, written apparently in a hand of the seventeenth century. It commences with an alphabetical list of the owners of the marks, among whom appear the King and Queen, the Dukes of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Richmond, Earls of Huntingdon, Essex, Oxford, Sussex, Surrey, and Leicester, with a large number of noble and private owners, amounting in the aggregate to several hundred. The diagrams of the marks follow, arranged in double columns, of six marks each to a page. A large proportion of the owners have two marks, and now and then three are attributed to the same possessor. Although the collection is a compilation of the time already referred to, it evidently incorporates some older work of the same nature, for among the names of Swan-owners occur the Prior of Spalding and the Abbot of Peterborough. The volume is inscribed with the autograph of Samuel Knight, a former owner of the book. The other manuscript, Egerton 2413, is an oblong octavo in vellum, containing thirty-eight folios, with double columns, of six marks each on either side, making a total of about eight hundred marks; some of the spaces having been left unappropriated. From the commencing mark being attributed to "I.R.," which in the previous manuscript is given to "The Kinge," there is little difficulty in fixing the date of the production of the book. These two manuscripts, lately acquired, are evidently copies of an older work, and it will be useful to mention here a few notes of similar records extant in the British Museum. In Harley MS. 433, at folio 217b, is a memorandum of "A Commission directed to al maners Shireffes, Eschetours, Baillieffes, Constables, Swanneherdes, and all hauyng the Rule of freshe Ryuers and waters in Somersetshire, especially in the freshe waters or Ryuers of