h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Swan Upping on the Thames - A8653791
Author: fatkelli - U181082

Ok, I'm putting my entries back in. They were almost ready anyway.

Any new comments?

I'm glad you've put them back in PR

Thanks.

Any nits to pick?

Footnotes should be complete sentences, so can you finish each one with a full stop (or even ...)?

I thought they had to have the full stops removed - so I carefully left them out

Will go and put them in

Footnotes don't have to be complete sentences, but they should end in a full stop.

"the right of marking was subject to a fine of one third of a pound" -- I don't understand that. It "the right of marking" something wrong, that has to be fined? Or is it a licence fee rather than a fine?

"royal" does not need a capital letter (except if it is in a title).

who's role is scientific --> whose role is scientific

pagentry --> pageantry

That 'right of marking' thing wasn't 100% clear to me either - it was on (I think) one of the royal websites and they didn't explain further. I read it to mean a fine if you did it illegally, then as a license to get permission to do it, then, given the context, decided they meant a fine. Will change my wording

I was just about to post asking whether Royal should be capitalised or not - same with Crown.

Actually, I've changed my mind again - if just carrying a swanhook earned you a fine of 2/3 of a pound then surely illegally marking birds would carry a stiffer sentence? So I may change it to reflect that it was a licensing thing. Will have a hunt around to see if I can find any confirmation either way, but if not shall I take that sentence out?

Right, I've taken the sentence out. I'm reasonably convinced it was a licencing fee but couldn't find anything to confirm that.

Have added another bit about the law enforcement and that until 1978 birds were pinioned as well as marked.

Does the ownership of all swans by the king thing apply to all species of swans, or could you import some from another part of the world?

I assume you are asking about the present situation, it relates to all swans found in open water (ie wild ones) and as I understand it in the UK they are all mute swans. If you imported some other swans (or possibly even a mute one - not sure about that) from overseas and kept them somewhere private then they wouldn't be available to be 'upped' - similarly, the census only takes place along some bits of the thames. I assume in the rest of the country ownership is left at the assumed state (and in the absence of any marks or rings assumed to be the crown's property) rather than the ringed, weighed and measured and recorded state. The health of the thames population is deemed indicative of the population as a whole - so the lead weight ban applies everywhere, not just along the thames.

I found that anyone who interfered with the nicks risked a year in prison. Swans are only mentioned in one of my books.

I'm not sure which rules still apply now, but knowing that 100 years isn't such a long time in the UK compared to here in the US, and knowing that there aren't really any 'wild' lands there made me wonder a bit. It seems because of your past tense that swanherds and swanhooks are no longer around, but the fine still is and the ownership of all swans unless specially licensed still is.

I was wondering if this is because swans are especially tasty (in which case, it'd apply only to those species that are) or whether something supernatural or cultural was supposed about swans that still is supposed. I was also wondering if you'd need to have a special licence to have, say, a petting zoo (presuming you could get the swans to be friendly and not nasty like geese).

I explain in the Modern Swan Upping bit that the activity is now a census that involves weighing and ringing the birds that are found on the waterways. Ownership of swans on open water stil hasn't changed, they are still owned by the Crown, the Vintners and the Dyers - I thought I'd said that, but if it isn't clear I'll have to add something, it is possible to have wild birds without 'wild lands' though. I doubt anyone is still fined for having a swanhook

I don't know if you would need a special licence to have a swan in your petting zoo because of the old laws, I doubt it but I'll try to find out. Not sure who to ask though, as all of the things I've seen from modern times tend to relate to the swan upping activity on the thames rather than any licencing scheme for zoos.

"I was wondering if this is because swans are especially tasty (in which case, it'd apply only to those species that are) or whether something supernatural or cultural was supposed about swans that still is supposed."
I don't understnd this question as you've written it - do you mean why does the crown still retain these rights? I guess the answer would be because it is the tradition. An awful lot of stuff happens here because it is tradition, there isn't anything supernatural about swans as far as I'm aware.

It's only in the last fifty years or so that we've stopped eating wild birds of all kinds, anyway - I don't think taste has much to do with it. I would imagine kelli is right in saying that the law hasn't change because of tradition - it's just an odd law that no-one has bothered to repeal.

I've done a bit of tinkering

I've moved the bit about registered marks up to before the bit about catching and marking the birds, and added an extra sentence to the beginning of the Modern section to make it clearer that the rights are pretty much symbolic these days (is that better Sea Change?) - and the purpose of the ceremony (apart from giving six boats full of rowers a nice week out in July, which should not be underestimated) is to monitor the population...

How's it looking?

I really think that pen and cob need their explanations in the entry - PDA and mobile don't have footnotes, and if you're going to distinguish between males and females, then really it does need an explanation in the text itself.

The reorganization makes it easier for me to tell what did happen and what is happening, so I do like it better and think it reads more clearly.



In suburban Los Angeles, there are definitely cities and neighborhoods where infestations of wild peacocks are tolerated for either civic pride, or for snob appeal. Do the Unitedkingdomese countrypeople, or any particular cities besides London, go out of their way to keep swans on their property as a status symbol still?



I think my misunderstanding has to do with what kind of wild animal is owned by who, and the differences there must be between them from the US and the UK. All the rivers in Silicon Valley were fished by anyone who was hungry and it took poisonings by mercury from goldmining and by solvents from wafer manufacture to make it illegal, rather than any presumed ownership. The herons were protected, but the fine was too small so they are mostly gone. If swans had also lived there, and the native kind was at all eatable, Silicon Valley is sufficiently metropolitan and international that *sombody* would be catching them.

This is why the explanation of the decline in swan population on the Thames seemed odd. I automatically (and perhaps a bit ungraciously) presumed somebody poor was eating them. because if I were in the same situation I sure would.

I added in a line to say the swans are not eaten any more, that mute swans are wild birds and that the ownership rights are only symbolic these days so I am not sure what else to add to the entry to make it clearer for you. Would it help if I used the term 'wild swan' rather than 'swan' a few times?

Is anyone else confused by this? And if you are could you make some suggestions what I could do to clear it up?

I have no idea if there are poeple that keep flocks of (presumably pinioned) birds on private land - that is outside the remit of Swan Upping on the Thames. I presume they don't though, as pinioning was banned in 1978.

There is a pair of swans on the canal near where I live, and we (the people of the town) feel like they're our swans, especially when they produce sygnets each year