The Naturalist on the Thames Part 8

It has been said that Thames eyots always seem to have been put in place by a landscape gardener. Chiswick Eyot is no exception to the rule. It covers nearly four acres of ground, and lies like a long s.h.i.+p, parallel with the ancient terrace of Chiswick Mall, from which it is separated by a deep, narrow stream, haunted by river-birds, and once a famous fishery.

A salmon, perhaps the last, was caught between the eyot and Putney in 1812, though the rent of the fishery used to be paid in salmon, when it was worked by the good Cavalier merchant, Sir Nicholas Crispe. The close-time for the fishery was observed regularly at the beginning of the century, the fis.h.i.+ng commencing on January 1st, and ending on September 4th. There are those who believe that with the increased purification of the Thames, the next generation may perhaps throw a salmon-fly from Chiswick Eyot. In the early summer of 1895 a fine porpoise appeared above the island. At half-past eight it followed the ebb down the river, having "proved" the stream for forty miles from its mouth, and being apparently well pleased with its condition. At Putney it lingered, as might be expected of a Thames porpoise, opposite a public-house. Two sportsmen went out in a boat to shoot it; instead, they hit some spectators on the bank.

Flowers abound on the eyot. The irises have all been taken, but what was the lowest clump, opposite Syon House, has lost its pride of place, for now there are some by the Grove Park Estate below Kew Bridge. The centre of the eyot is yellow with patches of marsh-marigold in the hot spring days. Besides the marsh-marigolds there are ma.s.ses of yellow camomile, comfrey, ragged robin, and tall yellow ranunculus, growing on the muddy banks and on the sides of the little creeks among the willows, and a vast number of composite flowers of which I do not know the names. Common reeds are also increasing there, with big water-docks, and on the edge of the cam-shedding of the lawn which fronts my house some of the tallest giant hemlocks which I have ever seen, have suddenly appeared. I notice that in Papworth's views of London, published in 1816, arrowhead is seen growing at the foot of the Duke of Buckingham's water-gate, which is now embedded at the back of the embankment gardens at Charing Cross. There is still plenty of it opposite Hammersmith Mall, half a mile below Chiswick Eyot.

The reach opposite and including the eyot is the sole piece of the natural London river which remains interesting, and largely unspoilt. I trust that if urban improvers ever want to embank the "Mall" or the eyot, public opinion will see its way to keeping this unique bit of the London river as it is. Already there have been proposals for a tram-line running all the length of the Mall, either at the front or behind it. The island belongs to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. There is a certain sense of the country about the eyot, because it is rated as agricultural land, though its lower end is inside the London boundary. The agriculture pursued on it is the growing of osiers. These, frequently inundated by high tides, and left dry when the ebb begins, are some of the finest on the Thames. At the present moment (January 5, 1902) they are being cut and stacked in bundles. In the spring the gra.s.s grows almost as fast between the stumps as do the willow shoots. This is cut by men who make it part of the year's business to sell to the owners of the small dealers' carts and to costers.

Formerly, when cows were kept in London, it was cut for their use. During the year of the Great Exhibition milk was very scarce, and this gra.s.s, which was excellent for the stable-fed cows, fetched great prices. In the summer the willows, full of leaf, and exactly appropriate to the flat lacustrine outline of the eyot and the reach, are full of birds, though the reed-warbler does not always return. He was absent last year. He is locally supposed to begin his song with the words "Chiswick Eyot! Chiswick Eyot!" which indeed he does pretty exactly. Early on summer mornings I always see cuckoos hunting for a place to drop an egg. In the summer of 1900 a young cuckoo was hatched from a sedge-warbler's nest, and spent the rest of the summer in the gardens opposite this and the next houses. All day long it wheezed and grumbled, and the little birds fed it. In the evenings it used to practise flying, and at last flew off for good.

CHISWICK FISHERMEN

"Please, sir, a man wants to know if he can see you, and he has brought a very large fish," was the message given me one very hot evening at the end of July, at the hour which the poet describes as being "about the flitting of the bats," plenty of which were just visible hawking over the willows on the eyot. Thinking that it was an odd time for a visit from a fishmonger, I was just wondering what could be the reason for such a request when I remembered a talk I had had at the ferry a week or two before on the subject of the continued increase of fish in the London Thames. It turned out to be as I expected; my visitor was one of the last local fishermen, and brought with him a splendid silver eel, weighing nearly 4 lb., taken in his nets that evening just opposite Chiswick Eyot.

It was the largest eel taken so low down for some years, and when held up at arm's length, was a good imitation of one of Madame Paula's pythons in the advertis.e.m.e.nt. He was anxious that I should come out for an evening's netting and see for myself how clear the water now is, and how good the fish. The previous summer, about the same date, I had asked him to see what he could catch in an evening as specimens; he had returned with over ninety fish, dace, roach, eels, barbel, and smelts, many of which were exhibited alive the next day before a good many people interested in the purification of the Thames. As a further proof I forwarded the big eel to the previous chairman of the London County Council, under whose sceptre the marked improvement in the river began first to be felt, and begged his acceptance of it as a tribute from the river. Then I arranged to be at the old ferry next day at 6.30 p.m.

It was the end of a blazing hot London day when I went down the hard to the water's edge, among the small, pink-legged boys, paddling, and the usual group of contemplative workmen, who smoke their pipes by the landing place. The river was half empty, and emptying itself still more as the ebb ran down. The haze of heat and twilight blurred shapes and colours, but the fine old houses of the historic "Mall," the tower of the church, and the tall elms and taller chimneys of the breweries, which divide with torpedo boats the credit of being the staple industries of Chiswick, stood out all black against the evening sky; the clas.h.i.+ng of the rivetters had ceased in the s.h.i.+pyard, but the river was cheerfully noisy; many eights were practising between the island and the Surrey bank, coaches were shouting at them, a tug was taking a couple of deal-loaded barges to a woodwharf with much puffing and whistling, and bathers, sheltered by the eyot willows, were keeping up loud and breathless conversations. "Not exactly the kind of surroundings the fishermen seeks," you will say; but, apparently, London fish get used to noise. Our boat was what I, speaking unprofessionally, should call a small sea-boat, but I believe she was built years ago at Strand-on-the-Green, the pretty old village with maltings and poplar trees that fringes the river below Kew Bridge. She was painted black and red, and furnished with a shelf, rimmed with an inch-high moulding inboard and drained by holes, to catch the drip from the net as it was hauled in. We were at work in two minutes. The net was fastened at one end to two buoys; these dropped down with the ebb, and formed a fixed, yet floating, point--if that is not a bull--from which the boat was rowed in a circle while one of the brothers who own the boat payed out the net. Thus we kept rowing in circles, alternately dropping and hauling in the net, as we slipped down what was once the Bishop of London's Fishery towards Fulham. There are still no flounders on the famous Bishop's Muds, but other fish were in evidence at once. Though the heat had made them go to the bottom, we had one or two at every haul. The two fishermen were fine specimens of strong, well-built Englishmen. The pace at which they hauled in the net, or rowed the boat round, was great; the rower could complete the circle--a wide one--in a minute, and the net was hauled in in less time, if the hauler chose to. Dace were our main catch--bright silvery fish, about three to the pound, for they do not run large in the tideway; but they were in perfect condition, and quite as good to eat, when cooked, as fresh herring. For some reason the Jews of London prefer these fresh-water fish; they eat them, not as the old Catholics did, on fasts, but for feasts. They will fetch 2d. each at the times of the Jews' holidays, so our fisherman told me, and find a ready sale at all times, though at low prices. Formerly the singularly bright scales were saved to make mother-of-pearl, or rather, to coat objects which were wished to resemble mother-of-pearl. After each haul the fish were dropped into a well in the middle of the boat. A few roach were taken, and an eel; but the most interesting part of the catch was the smelts. These sea-fish now ascend the Thames as they did before the river was polluted. We took about a dozen, some of very large size; they smelt exactly like freshly-sliced cuc.u.mber. I stayed for an hour, till the twilight was turning to dark, and the tugs' lights began to show. We had by then caught seventy fish, or rather more than one per minute; a hundred is a fair catch on a summer evening. In winter very large hauls are made; then the fish congregate in holes and corners. In summer they are all over the river. When the net happens to enclose one of these shelter holes, hundreds may be taken. Consequently the two fishermen work regularly all through the winter. Sometimes their net is like iron wire, frozen into stiff squares. In a recent hard winter the ice floated up and down the London Thames in lumps and floes; yet they managed to fish, and made a record catch of two thousand in one tide. I believe that if the Conservancy and the County Council go on as they are doing, we shall see the flounder back in the river above bridges, and that possibly sea-trout may adventure there too; though unless the latter can get up to sp.a.w.n, there can be no regular run of sea-trout. But they probably also act like grey mullet, and run up the estuaries merely for a cruise.[1]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SMELTS. _From a photograph by E. Seeley_.]

The last of the "Peter-boat" men mentioned in a previous chapter, has other claims to notice than that of being the only survivor of an ancient outdoor industry. He has given evidence before more than one committee of the House of Commons on the state of the river and the condition of its waters, and is the oldest salesman in that curious survival of antiquity, the free eel market held at Blackfriars Stairs on Sunday mornings; and, in addition, he has added to his original industry another branch of "fis.h.i.+ng" of a different kind, of which he is acknowledged to be the greatest living exponent. He is an expert at grappling and "creeping" for objects lying on the bed of the river, work for which his life-long acquaintance with the contours of the bottom and the tides and currents makes him particularly well fitted. Consequently he is now regularly employed by many firms and s.h.i.+pping companies to fish up anything dropped overboard, whether gear or cargo, which is heavy enough to sink. The oddest thing about this double business is that all the summer, while he lies and sleeps in his "Peter-boat" at Chiswick, he is in receipt of telegrams whenever an accident of this kind chances to happen, summoning him down river, to the Docks or the Pool, and these telegrams are delivered to him (I think by the ferryman) on his "Peter-boat." But the regular time for this other Thames "fishery" is in winter. Then the eels "bed," _i.e._, bury themselves in the mud, and the eel man goes either "gravelling," that is, scooping up gravel from the bottom to deepen any part of the channel desired by the Conservancy, or doing these odd salvage jobs. Getting up sunken barges is one side of the business. These are raised by fastening two empty barges to them at low tide, when the flood raises all three together, owing to the increased buoyancy. But of "fis.h.i.+ng" proper he has had plenty. He hooked and raised the steams.h.i.+p _Osprey's_ propeller, which weighed six tons. This was done by getting first small chains and then large ones round it, and fastening them to a lighter. Half-ton anchors, casks of zinc, pigs of lead, copper tubes, ironwork, s.h.i.+p-building apparatus, and the like, are common "game"

in this fishery. Other commodities are casks of pitch, cases of pickles, boxes of champagne, casks of sardines in tins, bales of wool, and even cases of machinery.

This form of Thames fishery increases rather than diminishes. Years ago he picked up under London Bridge a case of watches valued at 1,500. He was only paid for the "job," as the loss was known and it was not a chance find. Another and more sportsmanlike incident was an "angling compet.i.tion," among himself and others in that line, for some cases of rings which a Jew, who became suddenly insane, threw into the river off a steamer. He caught one case, and another man grappled the other. Sometimes in fis.h.i.+ng for one thing he catches another which has been in the water for months, as, for instance, a whole sack of tobacco, turned rotten. I do not know who "that young woman who kept company with a fishmonger" was, though he a.s.sumes that I do. But he certainly rescued her, and a gentleman who jumped off London Bridge, and several upset excursionists on various parts of the river. Also, as will be guessed, he has caught or picked up a good many corpses. I hear, though not from him, that on the Surrey side five s.h.i.+llings is paid for a body rescued, and on the Middles.e.x side only half-a-crown; so Surrey gets the credit of the greater number of the Thames dead. His life-saving services have been very considerable, though he does not make much account of them. He was instrumental in saving two women and six men on one occasion, and on another "three men and a soldier." The distinction is an odd one, but it holds good in the riverine mind.

[1] At the close of the season 1901-1902 in March, one of the men tells me that it has been the best year he has known. He caught sixteen eels one night with the net only. Very fine bream have also appeared as low as Hammersmith.

BIRDS ON THAMES RESERVOIRS

Now that every large town and many small ones are adding new reservoirs, often of great size, to hold their water supply, these artificial lakes play an important and increasing part in the wild life, not only of the country, but of cities, and even of London itself. Immense reservoirs have been made near Staines, and others are being added close to the London river. These quiet sheets of water, carefully protected from intrusion for fear of any pollution of the water, form artificial sanctuaries which not only fill with fish, which the water companies encourage, to eat the weeds and insects bred in the weeds, but attract wild-fowl of very many kinds in ever-increasing numbers. In Hertfords.h.i.+re the artificial lakes near Tring made to supply the Grand Junction Ca.n.a.l are carefully preserved, and have a large and resident population of wild-fowl (we believe a bittern bred there recently, and the great crested grebe is common), and some of the new London reservoirs are rapidly attracting a stock of wild-fowl. Thus civilisation is in some measure restoring the balance of wild life, and offers to the most persecuted of our birds a quiet and secure retreat. I was able at the close of February, 1902, to witness a striking example of the results of wild-bird protection in increasing some species of wild-fowl which for half a century had steadily dwindled and disappeared, and were practically unknown anywhere in the neighbourhood of London. The scene was on the very large new reservoirs which lie between the grounds of the Ranelagh Club and the Thames, on what was some seven years ago a tract of market gardens and meadows. The construction of these lakes was so ably planned and carried out that in two years from the turning of the first sod four wide pools, covering in all one hundred acres of ground, were ready to be filled, and at the end of 1898 the ground was metamorphosed into the largest area of water in the London district, with the exception of the Serpentine.

It is so rare for changes of this magnitude to take place in any other way than by covering what was open ground with bricks and mortar, that the advent of a kind of reservoir flora and fauna so close to the greatest city of the world was looked for with some curiosity. All the waste ground not covered by the water or filtering-beds produced quant.i.ties of brilliant flowers, as waste ground enclosed and left to itself generally does. The banks and broad walks between the lakes were sown with good gra.s.s, which was regularly made into hay. The reservoirs themselves soon filled with fish, which came down the mains from Hampton, where the water is taken in from the river. What these reservoir fish found to live upon at first is not clear. No weeds are allowed to grow either in the water or on the banks, which are concreted. But the bottom becomes covered with the suspended matter deposited from the unfiltered water, and probably a considerable number of the minute _entomostraca_ beloved of all fish breed in this. The Barnes reservoirs do contain a growth of weed, which is carefully removed every year. Whatever their sustenance may be, these reservoirs are very full of fish, both the old ones at Barnes and the new lakes near Ranelagh. The supply of fish, and the open and strictly private extent of water, then attracted a number of wild duck or water birds of some kind, which the writer was invited to see and identify, as it did not seem probable that they could be the ordinary wild duck, which are vegetable feeders, and would need an artificial supply of grain, which is provided on the Serpentine, but is not given to any of these reservoir ducks. They have appeared entirely uninvited. The scene over the lakes was as sub-arctic and lacustrine as on any Finland pool, for the frost-fog hung over river and reservoirs, only just disclosing the long, flat lines of embankment, water, and ice; the barges floating down with the tide were powdered with frost and snow-flakes, and the only colour was the long, red smear across the ice of the western reservoir, beyond which the winter sun was setting into a bank of snow clouds. It was four o'clock, and nothing apparently was moving, either on the ice or the water, not even a gull. In the centre of the north-eastern reservoir was what was apparently an acre of heaped-up snow. On approaching nearer this acre of snow changed into a solid ma.s.s of gulls, all preparing to go to sleep. If there was one there were seven hundred, all packed together for warmth on the ice. It is on or about these reservoirs that the London gulls now sleep. Sometimes they are there in thousands; but the sealing of so much of the water with ice had sent a great proportion of them down the river to the more open water of the Ess.e.x marshes. Beyond the gulls, which rose and circled high above in the fog with infinite clamour, were a number of black objects, which soon resolved themselves into the forms of duck and other fowl. Rather more than seventy were counted, swimming on the water near the bank or sitting on the ice. These were the self-invited wild duck, so tame that with very little trouble they were approached near enough for their colour and form to be distinctly visible. The result of a look through the gla.s.ses was something of a surprise. They were not mallard, teal, or widgeon; but three-quarters of the number were tufted ducks, a diving-duck species, which haunts both estuaries and fresh water, but preferably the latter. It is a very handsome little black-and-white duck, seen in great numbers on certain large lakes in Nottinghams.h.i.+re, and has greatly increased of late years in the county of Norfolk. But so far it has not appeared in any numbers either on the Surrey ponds or in Middles.e.x, and its a.s.sembling on this London reservoir is a remarkable proof of the tendency of wild-fowl to increase in this country.

The c.o.c.k birds were in brilliant winter plumage, with large crests, white b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and white "clocks" on their wings. Some were sleeping, some diving, and others swimming quietly. When approached, the whole flock rose at once, and flew with arrow-like speed round the lakes and twice or thrice back over the heads of their visitors, of whom they were not at all shy, being used to the sight of the man who keeps the reservoirs' banks in order. They swept now overhead, now just above the ice, like a flock of sea-magpies or ice-duck playing before some North Atlantic gale. As several birds had not risen, we ventured still nearer, and saw that most of these were coots, some ten or eleven, which did not fly, but ran out on to the ice. Two large birds remaining, which had dived, then rose to the surface, and to our surprise and pleasure proved to be great crested grebes. These birds, which a few years ago were so scarce even in Norfolk that Mr. Stevenson despaired of the survival of the species as a native bird, have bred for three seasons in Richmond Park. But their presence so close to London shows that we need not despair of seeing wild-crested grebes appear on the Serpentine. These birds are so wedded to the water that they rarely fly. But this pair rose and flew, not away from, but towards us, pa.s.sing within fifteen yards. With their long necks stretched out, feet level with the tail, and plumage apparently painted in broad, longitudinal stripes, they presented a very singular appearance.

The East of London owns a crowded wild-fowl sanctuary at Wanstead Park, which quite a different cla.s.s of ducks frequent. It is now the property of the public, and very carefully administered by trustees. The lake there is very narrow and winding, which causes it to freeze easily. On the other hand, it is full of long, densely wooded islands, some almost enclosing pools of water. These islands shelter the birds, and when the lake is covered with ice the islands are crowded with wild duck and widgeon.

Wanstead is a curious example of the faith of wild-fowl in a sanctuary, for the lake is so narrow that you could toss a stone among the fowl from the bank. Suburban houses are close by on all sides but the meadows by the little river Roding. Yet the fowl come to the lake as confidently as they do to great sanctuaries like Holkham. As there is a large heronry and rookery on the trees on the islands, the variety of life there is very great. The writer saw in weather like that in the second week of February, 1902, about a hundred and fifty wild duck, thirty or forty widgeon, a few teal, a pochard, and a great number of water-hens. Mallard, teal, dabchicks, and moorhens breed there regularly, and in hard weather a number of rarer birds drop in. Snipe are often seen by one of the shallower ponds, and occasionally such divers as goosanders appear and give an exhibition of fish-catching. These, like the tufted ducks and grebes, are entirely self-supporting. The wild duck are pensioners, being fed artificially, though they are wild birds, or descended from birds which were wild, just as are the London wood-pigeons.

THE CARRION CROW

Those familiar with the valley of the Thames and with the wild population both of the riverside and of the adjacent hills, will set down the carrion crow as the typical resident bird of the whole district. On the London Thames as high as Teddington it keeps mainly to the line of the river itself, on the banks of which and on the market gardens and meadows it finds abundant food, while the elms of large suburban residences give it both shelter and a safe nesting place. The bird is also commonly mistaken for a rook, and so shares the privileges of those popular birds. Higher up the river it swarms all along the Oxfords.h.i.+re and Berks.h.i.+re banks where not killed down by keepers, and a perfect army of them has for years invaded and been settled in the elm-bordered meadows of the Vale of White Horse. Thence it has spread on to the downs, where since the gradual abandonment of cultivation on the highest ground, and the removal of the scattered population of carters and keepers from a very large area, it now has matters all its own way. But it always haunted these heights, as the name "Crow Down," recurring more than once on the Ordnance maps, shows.

The "Crow Down" with which the writer is less acquainted is on the very high, wild land north of Lambourn. There they have grown so confident that a nest was found in a thorn bush not ten feet high, at a place called Worm Hill, a good old Saxon name denoting that snakes abound there. There is no doubt that the crows kill and eat the young snakes, one having been seen carrying a snake in its beak recently.

The habits of the carrion crow are so independent and peculiar, and its resourcefulness so great, that it is not to be wondered at that it holds its own well within and around London, while the rook is gradually being edged out. It is generally regarded as a criminal bird, which it is to some extent in the spring. From that point of view the following facts may be cited against the crow. He is keenly on the look-out for all kinds of eggs about the time that his own nest is building. Consequently he is a real enemy to pheasants, wild ducks, plovers, moorhens, and other birds which lay in open places before there is cover. Nothing is more exasperating than these exploits to people who know where birds are nesting on their property, and wish to see them hatch safely. A wild duck's nest in a large copse was found by some persons picking primroses.

In that copse was a crow's nest. The crows found out that the primrose-pickers had discovered something interesting, and a few hours later the "Quirk! quirk!" of the crows announced that they were enjoying life to an unusual degree. It was found that they had removed all seven eggs from the duck's nest. In an adjacent reclaimed harbour they took the eggs of ducks, plovers, redshanks, and even larks. In the Vale of White Horse they seem to take most of the early wild pheasant's eggs, besides stealing hen's eggs from round the farms. They are particularly fond of hunting down the sides of streams and ca.n.a.ls in the early morning, where they find three dainties to which they are particularly partial,-- moorhen's eggs, frogs, and fresh-water mussels. They swallow the frogs _in situ_, and carry the moorhen's eggs and mussels off to some adjacent post to eat them comfortably. The sh.e.l.ls of both eggs and mussels litter the ground under these dinner-tables. In Holland they are so mischievous that little "duck-houses" are made by the side of all the ornamental ca.n.a.ls in private grounds for the ducks to nest in, a convenience of which they, being sensible birds, avail themselves. These duck-houses, or laying bowers, are still regularly made by the half-moon ca.n.a.l at Hampton Court, a survival probably of the days of William of Orange's Dutch gardeners.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LOBSTER SMACK INN, CANVEY ISLAND. _From a photograph by R. B. Lodge_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STEPPING STONES AT BENFLEET. _From a photograph by R.

B. Lodge_.]

During the day they are very quiet birds, keeping much to the trees; but towards evening in March and April, their disagreeable croaking caw may be heard from all quarters where they are numerous. Just at dusk they become less wary than in the day. The writer for many years used to organise a few evening "drives" of the crows to try to thin them down before their ravenous families were hatched. Several guns used to hide in different parts of the valley near nests, and on to this "blockhouse line" the crows were driven. A few were generally shot before they discovered the plot.

Solicitude for the nest seldom leads them into danger, but one pair met their fate in this way. The first bird came flying to the nest, in which there were eggs, as soon as a shot was heard in the distance. It was killed, and hardly had the spark of the flash disappeared when the other bird dropped down out of the gloom straight on to the eggs, and met the same fate. Forty young chickens were taken by a pair of crows from a farm in one spring. It was objected by some young ladies who were "interested"

in the farm that the crows were "such sneaks." They used to come at luncheon-time up a line of trees extending from the wood to the farm. They were not in the least afraid of any one with a cart, apparently knowing that the horse could not be left, but would go straight for the chicken yard. A pair of sparrow-hawks near would seize a chicken now and then, but in a bold way as if they had a right to them. A few crows contrive to nest in Kensington Gardens. In the early mornings they always hunt the west banks of the Long Water, and are credited with taking a good many ducks'

eggs, as well as ducklings.

Crows make one of the best nests constructed by the larger English birds.

Usually it is placed, not out on the small branches, where rooks prefer to build them, but on the fork made by a large bough starting from the main trunk. This aids in concealment, and is a protection against shot, though probably the birds do not reckon on this contingency. The bottom of the nest is made of large, dead sticks. Upon and between these smaller twigs, often torn off green from willow-and elm-trees, or stolen from f.a.ggots of recent cutting, are laid and woven. Then a fine deep basin is made, woven of roots, gra.s.s, and some wiry stalk like esparto, the secret of where to find which seems a special possession of crows, and on this often a lining of bits of sheep's wool and cow's hair. There are sometimes as many as six eggs, and rarely less than four. They are quite beautiful objects, of a bright blue-green marked variously, but in a very decorative way, with blotches and smears of olive and blackish-brown. Two or three clutches of these eggs, with some of the splendid purple-red kestrels' eggs, and sparrow-hawks of bluish white, blotched with rich chestnut, make a very handsome show after a day's bird-nesting on the hills. The first eggs are laid very early, sometimes by the second week in April. A nest recently a.n.a.lysed consisted mainly of green ash taken from f.a.ggots and cuttings in the wood. One piece was a yard long, and as thick at the base as the little finger. The nest was _felted_ with cow's hair, and quite impenetrable to shot. These nests last for years, and often have a series of tenants, kestrels, squirrels, brown owls, or hobbies. If the first nest is destroyed, the crow makes another. In his conjugal relations the carrion crow is a model bird. He pairs for life, and is inseparable from his mate. If one croaks, the other answers instantly, but usually they keep within sight of one another all day. In the evening the pair, seldom more than a few yards apart, may be seen hunting diligently in the meadows for slugs, which, so long as the weather is not too dry, form the regular supper of the birds.

A remarkable instance of the crow's courage in defence of its mate occurred some years ago on Salisbury Plain when a party were out rook-hawking. A falcon was flown at one of a pair of crows on favourable, open ground. The two birds mounted in the usual spiral until the falcon stooped, bound to the crow, and the pair came to the ground together. Just as the horseman rode in to take up the hawk the other crow descended straight upon the falcon, knocked her off its prostrate mate, and the two flew off together to cover before the falcon had realised whence the onset came. This crow not only showed great courage in facing both the falcon and the sportsman, but timed its interference with the greatest judgment and precision.

Probably a tame crow would make an amusing pet. Its intelligence must be very considerable, though the shape of its head does not so clearly indicate brain as does that of a raven. Among the crows which haunt the banks of the London river there are some highly educated pairs. One has maintained itself on the reach opposite Ham House for thirteen years, if the evidence used to identify them is reliable. These birds were noticed at that distance of time ago to have learnt to pick up food floating on the water. To see a big black crow hovering like a gull, and picking up bread from the bosom of the Thames, is so unusual that it always excites remark, and the writer was informed only last summer that these Ham House crows were seen doing this constantly. Not many years ago a crow nested in a plane-tree in St. Paul's Churchyard, and a pair also reside on the island in Battersea Park. But the great headquarters of London crows are the grounds of Ranelagh, and the reservoirs and market gardens of Barnes and Chiswick. They flock to the manure heaps in the latter, where the gulls now join them, and several pairs spend all day nearly all the year round on the reservoir banks at Barnes, and on Chiswick Eyot. The Eyot crows seems to find a good living there, and never leave it till their young, which are annually hatched in a tree at some distance on the Middles.e.x side, can fly. But the crows haunting the great Barnes reservoirs, where the tufted ducks now a.s.semble in winter, are a bad lot.

Last winter they were seen to single out and attack any gull separated from the flock which usually came there to roost. A sick or wounded gull was soon caught, killed, and eaten, the small black-headed gulls being no match for the crows. It was characteristic of their cunning that by the river itself they did not molest the gulls.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HAULING THE NETS FOR WHITEBAIT. _From photographs by R.

B. Lodge_.]

LONDON'S BURIED ELEPHANTS

The amount of river gravel left in the part of the Thames Valley on which West London is built is extraordinary. It is all round, and mostly red, and as there are no rocks like the stone which makes up most of this gravel anywhere in the modern valley, it is puzzling to know where it came from. I went to see the digging of the foundations of the new South Kensington Museum, and the great excavation, which was like the ditch of a fortress, and the stuff thrown out, which was like the rampart, was all dug in, or made of, river gravel. In this the men had found, lying higgledy-piggledy, with no two bones "belonging," quant.i.ties of bones of the beasts which used to graze on what I suppose was the Kensington "veldt," or perhaps flats by the riverside, during the time when the river's drift and brick earth was being deposited. The Clerk of the Works was much interested in these discoveries, and had caused them to be carefully collected. These were bones of the great stags then common, of the elephant, and of the primaeval horse, creatures which lived here before the Channel was cut between England and France, though not, perhaps, before man had appeared in what is now the Thames Valley, for flint implements are often found with the bones. Dr. Woodward, to whom some of the remains were taken, said that they reminded him of the great discovery of similar remains in the brick earth at Ilford, in Ess.e.x, thirty-seven years ago, when he personally saw, dug from the brickfields of that almost suburban parish, the head and tusks of one of the largest mammoth elephants in the world. These river-gravel and brick-earth buried bones are rather earlier than those found in the peat and marl. The latter belonged to creatures which, though they no longer exist in England, are still found in temperate Europe--beavers, bears, bison, and wolves. But the Thames gravel and the London clay are in places full of the bones of another, and earlier, though by no means primaeval, generation of mammals, some of which are extinct, while others are found at great distances from this country, in remote parts of the earth. Judging from the places where they are found and from the position of the bones, large animals must have swarmed all over what is now London, just as they do on the Athi plains and near the rivers and forests through which the Uganda Railway runs.

There was the same astonis.h.i.+ng mixture of species, a mixture which puzzles inquirers rather more than it need. Hippopotamus bones are found in great numbers, and with the hippopotamus remains those of creatures like the reindeer and the musk ox, now found only on the Arctic fringe and frozen rim of the North, which lived on the same area and with them the Arctic fox. Judging from the great range of climate which most northern animals can endure, there is no reason to think this juxtaposition of a creature only found in warm rivers and of what are now Arctic animals is very strange. The London "hippo" was just the same, to judge from his bones, as that of the Nile or Congo. But the reindeer of North America, under the name of the woodland cariboo, comes down far south, and in the Arctic summer that of Europe endures a very high temperature. The Arctic fox does the same. If there were Arctic animals in Kensington and Westminster, that is no evidence that they lived in an Arctic climate. Looking over the list of bones, skulls, teeth, and tusks found, it is interesting to try to reconstruct mentally the fauna of greater London just previous to the coming of man. There were, to begin with, some African animals, either the same as are found on the Central African plains, and were found on the veldt of South Africa, or of the same families. The present condition of the country between Mount Kilimanjaro and the Victoria Nyanza shows quite as great a mixture of species. There, for instance, are all the big antelopes, rhinoceroses, zebras, lions, elephants, hyaenas, and wild dogs, and though there are glaciers on Kilimanjaro and the great mountains near the central valleys, the river running out of the Great Rift Valley is full of crocodiles and hippopotami. There is heather and, higher up, also ice and snow on the mountains, from whose tops the waters come that feed these crocodile-haunted streams. So on the London "veldt" there were lions, wild horses (perhaps striped like zebras), three kinds of rhinoceroses--two of which were just like the common black rhinoceros of Africa, though one had a woolly coat--elephants, hyaenas, hippopotami, and that most typical African animal the Cape wild dog! All these, except the elephants and hippos, can stand some degree of cold; and there is not the slightest reason why the two last may not have flourished in some deep river valley, very many degrees hotter than the hills above. To take an instance still remaining nearer to Europe than the Great Rift Valley. The Jordan Valley is very deep and very hot. Many species of birds are there found which are resident in India, and not anywhere nearer. It is a kind of hot slice of India embedded in the Palestine hills. The very large deer and immense bison and wild oxen probably fed on the same low veldt as the African animals. The bison were the same as those found in Lithuania, but far larger. Numbers of the skulls, of quite gigantic size, have been found in the brick earth. In the British Museum there is a tooth of the mammoth found in 1731, at a depth of 28 feet below the surface, in digging a sewer in Pall Mall. This Pall Mall mammoth might well figure in Mr. E. T. Reed's prehistoric series in _Punch_. Another tooth was found in Gray's Inn Lane. The mammoth was evidently not confined to the present region of clubland.

Besides these European and African groups of animals, a third cla.s.s ranged the London plains, probably at a greater height and in a still colder temperature than the large gra.s.s-eating mammals mentioned. These creatures, whose bones are found plentifully in the drift, are now living in a country even more specialised than the African veldt. They are the creatures of the Tartar steppes and the cold plains of Central Asia. Their names are the suslik (a Central Asian prairie dog), the pika, a little steppe hare, and an extremely odd antelope, now found in Thibet. This is a singularly ugly beast with a high Roman nose, and wool almost as thick as that of a sheep when the winter coat is on. It must have been quite common in those parts, for I have had the cores of two of their horns brought to me during the last few years.

These dry bones are not made so astonis.h.i.+ngly interesting by their setting in the gravel as are some far more ancient remains in England. The gravel is a mere rubbish-bed, like a sea-beach, in which all things have lost their connection. I was recently shown a set of fossils far more ancient, possibly not less than 2,000,000 years old, which were all found and may be seen exactly as they lay and lived when they were on the bottom of a prehistoric river which flowed through Hamps.h.i.+re, across what is now the Channel, over South France, and then fell into the Mediterranean. This river crosses the Channel at Hordwell cliffs on the Solent. There is the whole section, of a great stream two miles wide, with the gravel at its edges, the sediment and sand a little lower down the sides, and the mud at the bottom. On each lie its appropriate sh.e.l.ls. Some are like those in the Thames to-day, but many more like those of a river in Borneo. They are so thick that out of a single ounce of the mud 150 little sh.e.l.ls were obtained. In this, too, were found the tooth of a crocodile and the bones of a spiny pike, and in other ma.s.ses of clay the very reeds and bits of the trees that grew there. These sedges of the primitive ages were quite charming. Even some of their colour was preserved, and all their delicate fluting and fibre, in the fine clay. One of the branches of a tree, now turned to lignite, had possessed a thick pith. This pith had decayed, and water had trickled down the hollow like a pipe. The water was full of iron pyrites, and had first lined the tube with iron crystals and then filled up the whole hollow with a frosted network of the same. There is a striking contrast between the presence and realism of these once living things still preserving the outer forms of life and the vast and inconceivable distances of "geological time."

SWANS, BLACK AND WHITE

A few pairs of black swans have been placed upon the river. Some of these rear broods of young ones, and appear to be quite acclimatised. The black swan was known to the traders of our own East India Company nearly a century before Captain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks discovered Botany Bay.

The first notice of it appears in a letter, written about the year 1698, by a Mr. Watson to Dr. M. Lister, in which he says, "Here is returned a s.h.i.+p which by our East India Company was sent to the South Land, called Hollandia Nova," and adds that black swans, parrots, and many sea-cows were found there. In 1726, two were brought alive to Batavia, which were caught on the West Coast of Australia, near Hartop Bay, but no good account of their habits was ever written till Gould put together the facts he had seen and learnt on the spot.

The habits in their native land of birds which we only see acclimatised and domesticated, sometimes give a clue to what can be done to domesticate other breeds. This swan is only found in Australia, and only locally there, in the south and west. There it takes the place occupied by the Brent goose in our northern lat.i.tude, both as a water bird and as a source of food to the natives. "Wherever there are rivers, estuaries of the sea, lagoons, and pools of water of any extent the bird is generally distributed," says Gould. "Sometimes it occurs in such numbers that flocks of many hundreds can be seen together, particularly on those arms of the sea which, after pa.s.sing the beachline of the coast, expand into great sheets of shallow water, on which the birds are seldom disturbed either by the force of boisterous winds or the intrusion of the natives. In the white man, however, the black swan finds an enemy so deadly, that in many parts where it was formerly quite numerous it has been almost, if not entirely, extirpated.