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THE THAMES AT SINODUN HILL
THE THAMES AT SINODUN HILL
Fresh water is almost the oldest thing on earth. While the rocks have been melted, the sea growing salter, and the birds and beasts perfecting themselves or degenerating, the fresh water has been always the same, without change or shadow of turning. So we find in it creatures which are inconceivably old, still living, which, if they did not belong to other worlds than ours, date from a time when the world was other than it is now; and the fresh-water plants, equally prehistoric, on which these c
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THE FILLING OF THE THAMES
THE FILLING OF THE THAMES
In the late autumn of 1893, one of the driest years ever known, I went to the weir pool above the wood, and found the shepherd fishing. The river was lower than had ever been known or seen, and on the hills round the "dowsers" had been called in with their divining rods to find the vanished waters. "Thee've got no water in 'ee, and if 'ee don't fill'ee avore New Year, 'ee'll be no more good for a stree-um"! Thus briefly, to Father Thames, the shepherd of Sinodun Hill. He had pitched his float in
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THE SHELLS OF THE THAMES
THE SHELLS OF THE THAMES
Of the thousands who boat on the Thames during the summer few know or notice the beauty of the river shells. They are among the most delicate objects of natural ornament and design in this country. Exquisite pattern, graceful shapes, and in some cases lovely tints of colour adorn them. Nature has for once relaxed in their favour her rigid rules, by which she turns out things of this kind not only alike in shape, but with identical colour and ornament. Among humming-birds, for instance, each bird
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THE ANTIQUITY OF RIVER PLANTS
THE ANTIQUITY OF RIVER PLANTS
In the still gossamer weather of late October, when the webs lie sheeted on the flat green meadows and spools of the air-spiders' silk float over the waters, the birds and fish and insects and flowers of the best of England's rivers show themselves for the last time in that golden autumn sun, and make their bow to the audience before retiring for the year. All the living things become for a few brief hours happy and careless, drinking to the full the last drops of the mere joy of life before the
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INSECTS OF THE THAMES
INSECTS OF THE THAMES
Except among the select few, generally either enthusiastic boys or London mechanics of an inquiring mind, who keep fresh-water aquariums and replenish them from ponds and brooks at "weekends," few persons outside the fancy either see or know much of the water insects, 1 or are aware, when floating on a summer day under the willows in a Thames backwater, of the near presence of thousands of aquatic creatures, swift, carnivorous, and pursuing, or feeding greedily on the plants in the water garden
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"THE CHAVENDER OR CHUB"
"THE CHAVENDER OR CHUB"
"Now when you've caught your chavender, (Your chavender or chub) You hie you to your pavender, (Your pavender or pub), And there you lie in lavender, (Sweet lavender or lub)." Mr. Punch. I went into the Plough Inn at Long Wittenham in mid-November to arrange about sending some game to London. The landlord, after inquiring about our shooting luck, went out and came back into the parlour, saying, "Now, sir, will you look at my sport?" He carried on a tray two large chub weighi
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THE WORLD'S FIRST BUTTERFLIES
THE WORLD'S FIRST BUTTERFLIES
Thames plants must strike every one as belonging to an ancient order of life. But the vast clouds of winged ephemeridae that dance over its waters when there is a rise of "May-fly" in early summer look to be not only the creatures of a day, but of our day. In the astonishing wave and rush of life seen at such times, when from every plant and pool winged creatures are ascending to float in air, it is difficult to picture the silence and stillness of a world where there were no birds, or hum of be
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BUTTERFLY SLEEP
BUTTERFLY SLEEP
Fond as the butterflies are of the light and sun, they dearly love their beds. Like most fashionable people who do nothing, they stay there very late. But their unwillingness to get up in the morning is equalled by their equal desire to leave the world and its pleasures early and be asleep in good time. They are the first of all our creatures to seek repose. An August day has about fifteen hours of light, and for that time the sun shines for twelve hours at least; but the butterflies weary of su
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CRAYFISH AND TROUT
CRAYFISH AND TROUT
About the middle of August, when walking by one of the locks on a disused canal in the Ock Valley, I saw a man engaged in a very artistic mode of catching crayfish. The lock was very old, and the brickwork above water covered with pennywort and crane's-bill growing where the mortar had rotted at the joints. In these same joints below water the crayfish had made holes or homes of some sort, and were sitting at the doors with their claws and feelers just outside, waiting, like Mr. Micawber, for so
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FOUNTAINS AND SPRINGS
FOUNTAINS AND SPRINGS
Is it true that our fountains and springs of sweet water are about to perish? A writer in Country Life says "Yes," that in parts of the Southern counties the hidden cisterns of the springs are now sucked dry, and that the engineers employed to bring the waters from these natural sources to the village or the farm lament that where formerly streams gushed out unbidden, they are now at pains to raise the needed water by all the resources of modern machinery. When the old fountains fail new sources
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BIRD MIGRATION DOWN THE THAMES
BIRD MIGRATION DOWN THE THAMES
On September 16, 1896, after a period of very stormy wet weather, I saw a great migration of swallows down the Thames. It was a dark, dripping evening, and the thick osier bed on Chiswick Eyot was covered with wet leaf. Between five and six o'clock immense flights of swallows and martins suddenly appeared above the eyot, arriving, not in hundreds, but in thousands and tens of thousands. The air was thick with them, and their numbers increased from minute to minute. Part drifted above, in clouds,
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WITTENHAM WOOD
WITTENHAM WOOD
In Wittenham Wood, which in our time was not spoiled, from a naturalist's point of view, by too much trapping or shooting the enemies of game, though there was plenty of wild game in it, the balance of nature was quite undisturbed. Of course we never shot a hawk or an owl, and I think the most important item of vermin killed was two cats, which were hung up as an awful instance of what we could do if we liked. OTTERS. From a photograph by J. S. Bond. WATERHEN ON HER NEST. From a photograph by R.
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SPORT AT WITTENHAM
SPORT AT WITTENHAM
There is always some rivalry about shooting different woods on adjacent properties, and the villages near always take a certain interest in the results. Visiting our nearest riverside inn to order luncheon for our own shoot that week, I found about a dozen labourers in the front room, with a high settle before the fire to keep the draught out, sitting in a fine mixed odour of burning wood, beer, and pipes. Sport was the pervading topic, for a popular resident had been shooting his wood, and many
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SPORT AT WITTENHAM (continued)
SPORT AT WITTENHAM (continued)
A month later Mr. Harcourt was shooting his woods at Nuneham. There are more than four hundred acres of woods round this most beautiful park, all of them giving ideal English estate scenery. The oaks of the park are like those at Richmond, but there is not much fern except in the covers. Nuneham is the best natural pheasant preserve in the Thames Valley, except Wytham, Lord Abingdon's place, above Oxford. The woods lie roughly in a ring round the park, in which the pheasants sun themselves. Outs
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A FEBRUARY FOX HUNT
A FEBRUARY FOX HUNT
When the Yeomanry left the hunting field for South Africa, and "registered" horses were commandeered by Government, fox hunting in counties where it is not the main business of life might be supposed to languish. As a matter of fact, it did not; and if the fields were smaller than usual, and a good many familiar faces missing, the master very properly felt that as he had his pack and there were plenty of foxes, he might as well employ the one and hunt the other, and keep up the spirits of the co
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EWELME--A HISTORICAL RELIC
EWELME--A HISTORICAL RELIC
At the head of one of the smaller Thames tributaries, a few miles from the river, lies Ewelme, the ancient Aquelma, so called from the springing waters which rise there. There are trout in the brook and excellent water-cresses higher up, which are cultivated scientifically. Also there was a political row in Gladstonian days over an appointment to the living. But the real interest of this exceptionally beautiful Thames-valley village is that it is a survival, almost unchanged, of a "model village
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EEL-TRAPS
EEL-TRAPS
Fish and flour go together as bye-products of nearly all our large rivers. The combination comes about thus: Wherever there is a water-mill, a mill cut is made to take the water to it. The larger the river, the bigger and deeper the mill cut and dam, unless the mill is built across an arm of the stream itself. This mill-dam, as every trout-fisher knows, holds the biggest fish, and where there are no trout, or few trout, it will be full of big fish, while in the pool below there are perhaps as ma
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SHEEP, PLAIN AND COLOURED
SHEEP, PLAIN AND COLOURED
In the Thames Valley there are two very distinguished breeds of sheep--the Cotswolds at the head of the watershed, and the Oxford Downs, near Wallingford. Wallingford lamb is supposed to be the best in the market. There are also the Berkshire Downs sheep, but these are, I think, more obviously cross-bred, or else of the Hampshire breed. The Cotswold sheep are probably a very old breed. They are evidently the original of the woolly "baa-lamb" of the nursery, with long, fleecy wool. The Oxford Dow
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SOME RESULTS OF WILD-BIRD PROTECTION
SOME RESULTS OF WILD-BIRD PROTECTION
Among the happiest results of the modern feeling about birds is the conversion of the whole of the Thames above the tideway into a "protected area." This was not done by an order of the Secretary of State, who, by existing law, would have had to make orders for each bit of the river in different counties, and often, where it divides counties, would have been obliged to deal separately with each bank. The Thames Conservancy used their powers, and summarily put a stop to shooting on the river thro
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OSIERS AND WATER-CRESS
OSIERS AND WATER-CRESS
Osiers, the shoots of which are cut yearly for making baskets, crates, lobster-pots, and eel-traps are a form of crop of which not nearly as much is made in the Thames Valley as their profitable return warrants. Properly managed they nearly always pay well, and, in addition, they are very ornamental, and for the whole of the summer, autumn, and winter are one of the very best forms of covert for game. They are commonly seen near rivers, especially in parts where the ground is flooded in winter.
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FOG AND DEW PONDS
FOG AND DEW PONDS
The cycle of dry seasons seems to be indefinitely prolonged. During the period, now lasting since 1893, in which we have had practically no wet summers, and many very hot ones, a very curious phenomenon has been remarked upon the high and dry chalk downs. The dew ponds, so called because they are believed to be fed by dew and vapours, and not by rain, have kept their water, while the deeper ponds in the valleys have often failed. The shepherds on the downs are careful observers of these ponds, b
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POISONOUS PLANTS
POISONOUS PLANTS
A friend informs me that he has found a quantity of woad growing on the Chilterns above the Thame, enough to stain blue a whole tribe of ancient Britons, and also that on a wall by the roadside between Reading and Pangbourne he discovered several plants of the deadly nightshade, or "dwale." This word is said to be derived from Old French deuil , mourning; but its present form looks very English. The only cases of plant poisoning now common among grown-up people are those caused by mistaking fung
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ANCIENT THAMES MILLS
ANCIENT THAMES MILLS
Almost the greatest loss to country scenery is the decay of the ancient windmills and water-mills. The first has robbed the hilltops of a most picturesque feature, while in the valleys and little glens the roaring, creaking, dripping wheel sounds no longer, except in favoured spots where it still pays to grind the corn in the old way. The old town and city mills often survived longer than the country ones, and those on the Thames longer than those on smaller rivers. The corn and barley which was
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THE BIRDS THAT STAY
THE BIRDS THAT STAY
In the Vision of the Lots and Lives, when the souls chose their careers on a fresh register before taking another chance in the world above, Ulysses chose that of a stay-at-home proprietor, with a resolve, born of experience, never again to roam. If Plato had made a Myth of the Birds, he might have alleged some such reason to explain how it is that while most of them are incessant wanderers, ever flitting uncertain between momentary points of rest, so few remain fixed and constant, as if they ha
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ANCIENT HEDGES
ANCIENT HEDGES
In the upper Thames valley, both in May and autumn, one of the prettiest sights is the great hedges which divide the meadows. In spring, those above Oxford look as though covered with snow, and in early October they are loaded with hips and haws, just turned red, with blackberries, elderberries (though the starlings have eaten most of these), with crab apples, with hazel nuts, scarlet wild guelder-rose berries, dog-wood berries, and sloes. Except the fields themselves, our hedges are almost the
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THE ENGLISH MOCKING BIRD
THE ENGLISH MOCKING BIRD
One winter an unusual number of peewits visited the flats near Wittenham and Burcote, and remained there for several months. One or two starlings which haunted the house in which we stayed, and slept in their old holes in the thatch, picked up all the various peewits' calls and notes, and used to amuse themselves by repeating these in the apple-trees on sunny mornings. The note was so exact a reproduction that I often looked up to see where the plover was before I made out that it was only the s
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FLOWERS OF THE GRASS FIELDS
FLOWERS OF THE GRASS FIELDS
Just before hay-time, the crowning glory of the Thames-side flats is given by the flowers growing in the grass. Their setting, among the uncounted millions of green grass stems, appeals not only by the contrast of colour, but by the sense of coolness and content which these sheltered and softly bedded blossoms suggest. The meadows which they adorn are best-loved of all the fields of England; but they would never be as dear to Englishmen as they are were it not for the flowers which deck them. Th
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RIVERSIDE GARDENING
RIVERSIDE GARDENING
"And a river went out of Eden to water the garden." A Recent addition to the country house is the "water garden," in which a running brook is the centre and motif of the subsidiary ornaments of flowers, ferns, trees, shrubs, and mosses. Nature is in league with art in the brook garden, for nowhere is wild vegetation so luxuriant, and the two forces of warmth and moisture so generally combined, as by the banks of running streams. The brook is its own landscape gardener, and curves and slopes its
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COTTAGES AND CAMPING OUT
COTTAGES AND CAMPING OUT
This is supposed to be a "business" country, but one wonders why new wants which accompany any change of daily habit are so slowly realised. Take, for instance, the annual migration to the Thames Valley, which has assumed proportions never reached before. Beyond the enlargement of the riverside inns, little has been done to meet this new taste of English families for rustic life in place of the seaside; and though the thousands of visitors to the "happy valley" of our largest river do contrive t
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NETTING STAGS IN RICHMOND PARK
NETTING STAGS IN RICHMOND PARK
About the opening of the year I went to see the big stags netted in Richmond Park for transfer to Windsor. Last season this unique and ancient hunting had to be put off till February. There was too much "bone" in the ground to make riding safe. When the frost gave, the stags were more than usually cunning, and were helped by more than their usual share of luck. One fine stag charged the toils at best pace, and, happening to hit a rotten net, burst through, and went off shaking his antlers as pro
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RICHMOND OLD DEER PARK
RICHMOND OLD DEER PARK
If Henry VII.'s palace at Richmond still stood by the riverside, we should have a second Hampton Court at half the distance from London. It was almost the first of the fine Tudor palaces in this country, built very stately, with a prodigious number of towers, turrets, cupolas, and gilded vanes, on a site as fine as that of Wolsey's competing pile higher up the river. But though the palace has gone, the park is left. It is the precinct now called the Old Deer Park, in which not one in ten thousan
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FISH IN THE LONDON RIVER
FISH IN THE LONDON RIVER
The capture of a 4-lb. grilse in the Thames estuary in December, 1901, raised some hopes that we might in course of time see salmon at London Bridge. Mr. R. Marston, a great authority, in an article on "The Thames a Salmon River," in the Nineteenth Century , has given many reasons why he fears that this will not be realised. The question is not so much whether the salmon can come up, as whether the smolts, or young salmon, could get down through the polluted water. But the experiments made are i
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CHISWICK EYOT
CHISWICK EYOT
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 ship, 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, whe
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CHISWICK FISHERMEN
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
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BIRDS ON THAMES RESERVOIRS
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 sanctuarie
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THE CARRION CROW
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 m
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LONDON'S BURIED ELEPHANTS
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
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SWANS, BLACK AND WHITE
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 ship which by our East India Company was sent to the South Land, c
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CANVEY ISLAND
CANVEY ISLAND
Down near Thames mouth is the curious reclamation from the river mud known as Canvey Island. It is separated from the land by a "fleet," in which the Danes are recorded to have laid up their ships in the early period of their invasions, and the village opposite on the mainland is called Benfleet. Though on the river, it is a half-marine place, with the typical sea-plants growing on the saltings by the shore. In summer I noticed that the graves below the grey sea-eaten, storm-furrowed walls of th
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THE LONDON THAMES AS A WATERWAY
THE LONDON THAMES AS A WATERWAY
Mary Boyle, in "Her Book," speaking of the time when her father had an appointment at the Navy Board and a residence in Somerset House, says, "It was our great delight to go by water on Sunday afternoon to Westminster Abbey, and there is no doubt we occasionally cut a grand figure on the river; for when my father went out he had a splendid barge, rowed by boatmen clad entirely in scarlet, with black jockey caps, such as in those picturesque old days formed part of that beautiful river procession
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THE THAMES AS A NATIONAL TRUST
THE THAMES AS A NATIONAL TRUST
A movement is on foot among various societies interested in the preservation of outdoor England to take measures jointly for the protection of the beauties of the Thames. The subject is one which attracts more interest yearly, and the time has now come when the nation should make up its mind on the subject of such splendid properties as it possesses in "real estate" like the Thames and the New Forest, with especial regard to their value for beauty and enjoyment. It would be unfair to expect too
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