THE NATURALIST ON THE THAMES.* M.B. Comma has so firmly
established himself as a writer on the outdoor world and the wild life of England that his new volume is certain of an immediate welcome. It was a happy idea to take the river Thames and make it the subject of a series of essays on natural history. Some of the chapters will not be new to our readers, for they have already appeared in the Spectator. Others have been published in Country Life and the Badminton Magazine. We venture, however, to think that there is not a chapter in the present volume which was not worth reprinting, and which cannot be read more than once with pleasure. The whole collection of some forty essays forms a delightful volume for any one who cares to read about Nature, natural history, and sport. The great merit of Mr. Cornish's writings is that he really knows what he is writing about, and generally has collected some new information or made some original observation on the subject. He has fished and shot in the Thames Valley ; he has observed the birds and botanised from near the source to Canvey Island; he has lived for many years opposite Chiswick Eyot, where the river enters the county of London. There is every variety of wild life to observe and describe on a river like the Thames :—
" The Thames, our longest fresh-water river, and its containing valley form the largest natural 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 Conserva- tors, whose control now extends from the Nore to the remotest springs in the hamlets in its watershed; 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 sunk beneath the sea and twice have risen again above the waters. 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 ()elite of the Cotswolds, by the blue lies 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 drift and brick earth in which lie bedded the frames and fragments of its prehistoric beasts. In and beside its valley are great woods, parks, downs, springs, ancient mills and fortresses, palaces and villages, and such homes of prehistoric man as Sinodun Hill and the but remains at Northfield. It has a hundred and fifty-one miles of fresh water, and seventy-seven of tideway, and is almost the only river in England in which there are islands, the famous eyota, the lowest and largest of which at Chiswick touches the London boundary."
To preserve the river from disfigurement and destruction, to protect the wild life and plants from extermination, to purify its polluted waters and improve the boating and fishing, are matters of national importance. Mr. Cornish in his last chapter, " The Thames as a National Trust," points out how much
• The Naturalist on the Tkamcs. By C. J. Cornish, F.Z.S. louden Seeley ar.1 Co. [7s. lid.1
good has been already done by the Thames Conservancy. But their duty is primarily to maintain the navigation rather than to preserve the amenities of the banks. He pleads with much force for the appointment of a body of Trustees or Com- missioners in whom shall be vested the duty and the power of preserving the water from pollution and the banks from disfigurement. It is scandalous that land on the banks of the Thames should be advertised for sale in the newspapers in these words : "A Site on the River—Suitable for s Nuisance Trade." The London County Council deserve the greatest praise for the work they have done in purifying the Thames frau sewage. Instead of allowing the whole of the drainage of London to fall into the Thames near Barking, the liquid effluent is purified and millions of tons of solid refuse are Parried out to sea. Much more might still be done, but the affect on the fish in the river is wonderful. Mr. Cornish has little hope of seeing the Thames a salmon river yet ; but the whitebait since 1890 have advanced wonderfully. They re- appeared at Gravesend in 1892. The whitebait fishermen were busy next year ten miles higher than they had been for many years. The condenser-tubes of torpedo-boats running their trials were choked with whitebait. Flounders appeared once more at the Bishop of London's fishery near Chiswick. Eels in
numbers were taken between Hammersmith and Kew. Fresh- water fish came down the tideway also. Roach and dace were seen at Westminster ; a few were caught below London Bridge. In 1900 some roach got to Woolwich, but were soon poisoned, and died. Smelts, more interesting to the gourmet (as well as
the naturalist), were taken in numbers between Putney and Teddington, after almost complete disappearance for many years. There is much to rejoice at in Mr. Cornish's chapter on fish in the London river. Very pleasant, too, is the article on the Chiswick fishermen.
But we must leave the county of London and go higher up the Thames. Other riparian County Councils have done good work in protecting the wild birds, for the valley of the Thames is an important highway for migrants flying into and out of the country. The valley also has an excellent flora, which some day will probably have to be protected as well. These river plants are also mentioned by Mr. Cornish ; and there are chapters as well on the shells and insects of the Thames. Crayfish-catching was once a minor industry on the upper reaches of the river, but now a disease which first appeared near Staines and worked its way up has almost killed off the crayfish. It is to be hoped that in time the river will be repopulated. The crayfish-pots were made of thin osiers, not much thicker than a straw. Now very few crayfish are got from the Thames. Eel-catching is still an industry, and osier-growing for baskets and eel-traps is a business in the Thames Valley. Osiers are a profitable crop, for an acre may produce three tons of rods, and the value of the crop when harvested is often at least £15 an acre gross return. The eel-traps are often adjuncts to the mills, and are worked by the millers :—
" Eel-bucks, of which few perfect sets now remain, are the fixed engines so often seen on the Thames, and are a costly and rather striking contrivance adding greatly to the picturesqueness of parts of the river. They are very ancient, and date from days when the eel-run' was one of the annual events of river life. The eels went down in millions to the sea, and the elvers came up in such tens of millions that they made a black margin to the river on either side by the bank, where they swam because the current was there weakest. The large eels were taken, and are still taken, on their downward journey in autumn. It is then that the Thames fills, and, at the first big rash of water, the eels begin to descend to reach the mud and sands at the Thames mouth, where they spawn. They always travel by night, and it is then that the heavy eel-bucks are lowered. Often hundredweights are taken in a night, all of good size ; one of the largest of which there is any record being one of fifteen pounds, taken in the Kennet near Newbury."
A good chapter in Mr. Cornish's book is that on Wittenham Wood, which stands on the banks of the river opposite the junction of the river Thame. Such a large and isolated wood proves a great attraction to the wild creatures of the countryside. All the British land carnivora (except the cat and the martin) are to be found in it. A pole- cat has been seen there, and the hobby nests there every year.
Wittenham Wood was not spoiled from the naturalist's point of view by too much trapping or shooting of the enemies of game. The balance of Nature was not disturbed, and there- was always plenty of wild game in it. There are many
other chapters in this last volume of Mr. Cornish which we would be glad to refer to if space allowed. Such a book as this will be read with enormous pleasure by those who are kept by work in that hideous, evil-smelling, and ever-extend- ing maze of streets which William Cobbett delighted to call "The Wen." Mr. Cornish's book will transport them to the banks of the river, to meadows of flowers, and woods where wild life is undisturbed.
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