Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/230

208 years past. In May, 1876, one was captured on the Surrey side of Hungerford Bridge, and its carcase was sold and exhibited in the New Cut. Another was shot about the same time near the Cherry Garden Pier, Rotherhithe.— ' The Times,' 13th May.

[Mr. Lionel Tennyson subsequently communicated to 'The Times' the fact that on May 13th he had seen a Porpoise in the Thames immediately below Barnes Bridge.—Ed.]

—The perusal of the Rev. A.C. Smith's graphic description of the Swannery at Abbotsbury, in 'The Zoologist' for December last, determined me to take advantage of a visit to Weymouth to inspect this celebrated colony. Mr. Smith's description leaves little to be added, but I may perhaps be permitted to supplement it by a few scraps of information gleaned during my visit and in conversation with the ancient swanherd. I was informed by this authority that the total number of Swans now under his charge is fully 1300, of which he considered that nearly half were engaged in the duties of incubation at the time of my visit (25th April), in addition to some few stragglers which nested elsewhere, and a few late birds whose nests were still empty, but were not likely long to remain so. At the hour of my visit, between four and five in the afternoon, the Swans were on their nests, and the day being brilliant, the sight was a splendid one. On most of the nests the hen swan was sitting, whilst her mate was keeping his proud watch close by; but in a few instances the male bird had left his partner and had gone out into the "fleet" to feed, whilst in other, though I think fewer, cases the hen bird was absent whilst the male remained in charge. The swanherd told me that of about seven hundred cygnets hatched in 1877 very few had been reared except the two hundred brought up under nurses in the manner described by Mr. Smith. These nurses are hen swans which have hatched a brood of their own, to which the cygnets hatched by other mothers are added till the requisite number of twenty—which is considered as many as one nurse can attend to—is completed; but it is needful that the cygnets given her to adopt should be of the same age as her own brood, and that very young, otherwise she would destroy them. The young birds brought up by hand are principally designed for the table, and I can by no means concur in Mr. Smith's view of a cygnet, well fattened and well dressed, being other than a first-rate dish. I was, however, informed that occasionally some of the cygnets thus artificially reared are released, when fully grown, for the purpose of keeping up the stock of old birds. Those cygnets which are left under the care of their parents are, for the most part, lost, as the swanherd told me, from their inability to obtain a sufficient sustenance from the weed growing in the brackish water of the "fleet." This, he said, is now less