Only lately, a person paddling in a canoe near Chelmsford approached a
nest of cygnets, when the parent swan swam out, and seizing the bow of
the canoe, nearly upset it. The paddler had to back out of the way,
with difficulty escaping the violent assaults of the enraged bird.
One morning, as a family of cygnets were assembled on the banks of one
of the islands in the Zoological Gardens of London, and the parent birds
were swimming about watching their little ones, a carrion-crow, thinking
that the old birds were too far off to interfere with him, pounced down
on one of the cygnets. The father swan, however, had his eye on the
marauder, and, darting forward, seized him with his bill. The crow in
vain struggled to get free. The swan, like the gander I before
mentioned, dragged the felon towards the lake, and plunging him under
water, held him there till his caws sounded no longer.
Be brave and bold in defence of the helpless, especially of those
committed to your charge.