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- '* I I *.* Fox FLUSHING PHEASANTS. From a drawing by Lancelot Speed. THE NATURALIST ON THE THAMES F.Z.S. C. J. CORNISH, at the Author of "Wild England," "Life Zoo, "Animals of To-day? etc. WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED RUSSELL STREET 38, GREAT 1902 " 1 11 * * *> : V s"-.** **. ; **i . 'PREFACE spent the greater part of my outdoor HAVINGlife in the Thames Valley, in the enjoyment of the varied interests of its natural history and sport, I have for many years hoped to publish the obser- vations contained in the following chapters. They have been written at different intervals of time, but always with a view to publication in the form of a commentary on the natural history and character of the valley as a whole, from the upper waters to the mouth. For permission to use those which have been previously printed I have to thank the editors and proprietors of the Spectator, Country Life, and the Badminton Magazine. C. J. CORNISH. ORFORD HOUSE, CHISWICK MALL. 357754 CONTENTS PAGE THE THAMES AT SINODUN HILL . .1 THE FILLING OF THE THAMES .... 5 THE SHELLS OF THE THAMES . .II THE ANTIQUITY OF RIVER PLANTS . l8 INSECTS OF THE THAMES . 25 "THE CHAVENDER OR CHUB" . 32 THE WORLD'S FIRST BUTTERFLIES . 3^ BUTTERFLY SLEEP . ..'." . '44 1 CRAYFISH AND TROUT . ...- *. 5 FOUNTAINS AND SPRINGS . '59 BIRD MIGRATION DOWN THE THAMES . 65 WITTENHAM WOOD * . /' '7 SPORT AT WITTENHAM .- . 77 SPORT AT WITTENHAM (continued) ._, . 83 A FEBRUARY FOX HUNT . 87 EWELME A HISTORICAL RELIC . 94 " EEL-TRAPS . 100 SHEEP, PLAIN AND COLOURED . IO6 vi CONTENTS PAGE SOME RESULTS OF WILD-BIRD PROTECTION . ' IJ 3 ' OSIERS AND WATER-CRESS . ... .121 i FOG AND DEW PONDS . , . .1 28 POISONOUS . s . * . PLANTS ., , 136 ANCIENT THAMES MILLS . ." . .142 THE BIRDS * .. THAT STAY * .148 ' ANCIENT HEDGES . > . ., J 55 THE ENGLISH MOCKING BIRD , . 1 62 FLOWERS OF THE GRASS FIELDS . .169 RIVERSIDE . GARDENING .. Ij6 ' COTTAGES AND CAMPING OUT . , j 1 82 .. ^ NETTING STAGS IN RICHMOND PARK . / 1 88 RICHMOND OLD DEER PARK * . 194 FISH IN THE LONDON RIVER , . 2OO CHISWICK EYOT . 2O/ CHISWICK FISHERMEN . .211 . BIRDS ON THAMES RESERVOIBS N . 21 8 THE CARRION CROW . 224 LONDON'S BURIED ELEPHANTS . , f 231 SWANS, BLACK AND WHITE . , . 237 CANVEY ISLAND . ^ . 242 THE LONDON THAMES AS A WATERWAY . , 248 THE THAMES AS A NATIONAL TRUST . 254 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS A FOX FLUSHING PHEASANTS . Frontispiece . 8 WILD DUCK . To face page A FULL THAMES . ,, 8 SHELLS OF THE THAMES . 14 A FLOWERY BANK . , . 1 8 , BURR REED AND FLOWERING RUSH . 2O * A MONSTER CHUB .". 36 BUTTERFLIES AT REST . * 44 A TROUT . * . V : 56 OTTERS . 70 A WATERHEN ON HER NEST . JO . A DABCHICK , , . 74 A BADGER . , 74 FOX AND CUB , . 88 EWELME POOL i ... 96 A NIGHTJAR AND YOUNG ONE . Il8 A REED-BUNTING. I 1 8 viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PEELING OSIERS . To face page 124 BOTLEY MILL . ,. -. 146 - EEL BUCKS . , . 146 ORCHIS . , . 172 WATER VIOLET AND WILD IRIS . l8o A NETTED STAG . * ... 192 . BREAM AND ROACH f,;'|j . 2O2 A GRAMPUS AT CHISWICK . 204 SMELTS . * . 214 THE LOBSTER SMACK INN, CANVEY ISLAND 242 THE STEPPING-STONES AT BENFLEET . 242 HAULING THE NETS FOR WHITEBAIT * 246 FISHING BOATS AT LEIGH . * 256 THE NATURALIST ON THE THAMES THE THAMES AT SINODUN HILL water is almost the oldest thing on earth. FRESHWhile 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 and the fresh-water now ; plants, equally prehistoric, on which these creatures feed. Protected by this constant element the geographical range of these animals and plants is as remarkable as their high antiquity. There are in lake Tanganyika or the rivers of Japan exactly the same kinds of shells as in the Thames, and the sedges and reeds of the Isis are found from Cricklade to Kamschatka and beyond Bering Sea to the upper waters of -the Mackenzie and the Mississippi. The Thames, our longest fresh-water river, and its containing valley form the largest natural * - . 2 THE THAMES AT SINODUN HILL feature in this country. They are an organic whole, in which the river and its tributaries support a vast and separate life of animals and plants, and modify that of the hills and valleys by their course. Civil law has recognised the Thames system as a separate area, and given to it a special government, that of the Conservators, whose control now extends from the Nore to the remotest in the hamlets in its watershed springs ; and natural law did so long before, when the valley became one of the migration routes of certain southward- flying birds. Its course is of such remote antiquity that there are those who hold that its bed may twice have been sunk beneath the sea, and twice risen again above the face of the waters. 1 It has ever been a masterful stream holding its own against the inner forces of the earth for where the chalk hills ; rose, silently, invisibly, in the long line from the vale of White Horse to the Chilterns the river seems to have worn them down as they rose at the crossing point at Pangbourne, and kept them under, so that there was no barring of the Thames, and no subsequent splitting of the barrier with gorges, cliffs, and falls. Its clear waters pass from the oolite of the Cotswolds, by the blue lias and its fossils, the sandstone rock at Clifton Hampden, the gravels of Wittenham, the great chalk range of the downs, the greensand, the Reading Beds, to the geological pie of the London Basin, and the beds of drifts and brick earth in which lie bedded the frames and fragments of its prehistoric beasts. In and beside 1 " of Phillips, Geology Oxford and of the Valley of the Thames." THE THAMES AT SINODUN HILL 3 its are valley great woods, parks, downs, springs, ancient mills and fortresses, palaces and villages, and such homes of prehistoric man as Sinodun Hill and the hut remains at Northfield. It has 151 miles of fresh water and 77 of tideway, and is almost the only river in England in which there are islands, the famous eyots, the lowest and largest of which at Chiswick touches the London boundary. After leaving Oxford the writer has lived for many years opposite this typical and almost unspoilt reach of the London river, and for a considerable time shot over the estate on the upper Thames of which Sinodun Hill is the hub and centre. This fine outlier of the chalk, with its twin mount Harp Hill, dominates not the only whole of the Thames valley at its feet, but the two cross vales of the T.hame and the Ock. On the bank the opposite Thame joins the Isis, and from thence flows on the THAMES. Weeks and months spent there at all seasons of the year gave even better opportunities for becoming acquainted with the life of the Upper Thames, than the London river did of what the learning tidal stream really is and may become. Fish, fowl and foxes, rare Thames flowers and shy Thames chub, butterflies, eel-traps, fountains and springs, river shells and water insects, are all " " parts of the natural commodities of the district. There is no better and more representative part of the river than this. Close by is Ntmeham, one of the finest of Thames-side parks, and behind that the remains of wild Oxfordshire show in Thame Lane 4 THE THAMES AT SINODUN HILL and Clifton Heath. How many centuries look down from the stronghold on Sinodun Hill, reckoning cen- turies by human occupation, no one knows or will know. There stands the fortress of some forgotten race, and below it the double rampart of a Roman camp, running from Thame to Isis. Beyond is Dor- chester, the abbey of the oldest see in Wessex, and the Abbey Mill. The feet of the hills are clothed by Wittenham Wood, and above the wood stretches the weir, and round to the west, on another great loop of the river, is Long Wittenham and its lovely backwater. Even in winter, when the snow is falling like bags of flour, and the river is chinking with ice, there is plenty to see and learn, or in the floods, when the water roars through the lifted hatches and the rush of the river throbs across the misty flats, and the weeds and sedges smell rank as the stream stews them in its mash-tub in the pool below the weir. THE FILLING OF THE THAMES the late autumn of 1893, o'ne of the driest years INever 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. "TheeVe 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 into the pool below the weir the pool which lies in the broad, flat fields, with scarce a house in sight but the lockman's cottage and for the first time on a Saturday's fishing he saw his bait go clear to the bottom instead of being lost to view instantly in the boiling water of the weir-pool.

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