The Naturalist on the Thames Part 4

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 Downs are a short-woolled sheep. One of the flocks of this breed has been improved by selection, mainly in regard to fecundity, to such an extent that I believe twins are the normal proportion among the lambs. The shepherds, as elsewhere on the large down farms, form a race apart. They are not always on the best of terms with the ordinary farm labourers, I notice. "The shepherd be a working against I," is a complaint I sometimes hear. The real reason is that the shepherd thinks, above all things, of his flock, and of finding them _food_. The feud between the keeper of sheep and the raiser of crops dates from the days of Cain and Abel.

I heard lately from a gentleman who very frequently occupies the honourable position of judge or steward at the leading agricultural shows, that it is proposed that in future no sheep sent to shows are to be allowed to have their coats rouged, and the judges are in future to make their decisions uninfluenced by the beauties of cosmetics. This decision comes as a great blow to the skilled hands in the business of the "improver," who, by long experience and a nice knowledge of the weaknesses of judges, had brought the art of "making up" pedigree sheep of any particular breed to something very nearly approaching the ideal of perfection. Their wool was clipped so artistically as to resemble a bed of moss, and this being elegantly tinted with rouge or saffron, the sheep a.s.sumed the hue of the pink or primrose, according to taste and fancy. The reason for the demand which now requires that the champions of the flock shall be shown "plain" and not coloured is not too technical to appeal to the general public. Those who know the acute anxiety with which the exhibitors of prize animals, from fancy mice to shorthorns, watch them "coming on" as the hour for the show approaches, will treat tenderly, even if they cannot condone, the little weaknesses into which the uses of rouge and saffron led them. When a Southdown which ought to have a contour smooth and rounded as a pear still showed aggravating little pits and hollows where there ought to be none, nothing was easier than to postpone clipping those undesirable hollows till the moment before the show, or if there were b.u.mps where there should be no b.u.mps, to shave the wool down close over them. Left to Nature, the newly-clipped wool would show a different tint from the rest of the fleece; but the rouge or saffron then applied made all things even, to the eye, and the judges to find out whether the animals were "level" or not had to feel them all over. Feeling every six inches of some two hundred sheep's backs is very tiring work; so the judges have struck against rouge, and there is an end of it.

One night, some years ago, an extraordinary thing happened on both lines of downs by the Thames, near Reading, and also along the Chilterns. Most of the flocks over a very large area took a panic and burst from their folds, and next morning thousands of sheep were wandering all over the hills. I feel certain that there must have been an earthquake shock that night. Nothing else could have accounted for such a wide and general stampede. The last authenticated earthquake shock in the South Midlands took place hereabouts in 1775, and was noted at Lord Macclesfield's Castle of Shirbourne, where the water in the moat was seen to rise against the wall of one of the towers.[1]

Are our domestic sheep, except for their highly artificial development of wool, really very different from their wild ancestors, the active and flat-coated animals which still feed on the stony mountain-tops? The ways of sheep, not only in this country but abroad, show that a part at least of their wild nature is still strong in them; and if type photographs of all the representative domestic animals of our time, had been possible a few centuries ago, it may be that even in this country the shape of the animal would be found to have been far nearer to the sheep of St. Kilda and of the wild breeds than it is to-day.

In one of the old Cloth Halls of Norfolk are two fine reliefs in plaster, one showing the _Argo_, bringing the golden fleece, the other a flock of sheep of the day, with a saint in Bishop's mitre and robes preaching to them. The shepherd, in a smock, is spinning wool with a distaff; and the sheep feeding around him, though carefully modelled, are quite unlike any of the modern breeds. Many of the domestic sheep of hot countries are more slender and less woolly than the wild sheep of the mountains. The black-and-white Somali sheep, for instance, are as smooth as a pointer dog.

But it is in temperament and habits that the close connection between the wild and tame breeds is most clearly shown. The _excessive_ domestication of the flocks of Southern England has killed all interest in them even among those who live in the country, and are keen and sympathetic observers of the ways of every other creature in the fields.

The beauty of the lambs attracts attention, and the prettiness of the scene when they and their mothers are placed in some sheltered orchard among the wild daffodils and primroses, or in an early meadow by the brook, makes people wonder why they are so stupid when grown up. But the fact is that when not penned up by hurdles and moved from square to square over a whole farm, so that each inch of food may be devoured, each member of the flock can think for itself, and would, in less artificial surroundings, make for itself a creditable name for independence and intelligence. All sheep have retained this distinguishing habit of their ancestors, that they are by nature migratory, and share with nearly all migrant animals a capacity for thought and organisation, and a knowledge of localities. Wild sheep are migratory because they live by preference on the rocky and stony parts of hills just below the snow-line. This is why the tame sheep do so well on the moors of Scotland and mountains of Switzerland. But as the snow-line descends each winter far below their summer feeding haunts, wild sheep either migrate to the lower slopes of the mountains, or, like the deer of the Rockies, move off altogether to great distances. Every winter, for instance, the lower valleys of Yellowstone Park are filled with deer and antelope from the distant mountains. So the tame flocks of Greece, Thrace, Spain, and even Scotland are migratory. In Scotland their transport is modernised, and they travel regularly by steamer from the islands to winter in the Lowlands, and by train from the Highlands. Two years ago a flock of migratory sheep from Ayrshire came for early spring feeding to Hyde Park, and were there shorn, with their Highland collies looking on. In the "old countries" and the non-progressive East of Europe the migration of the flocks is on a vaster and far more romantic scale. In Spain there are some ten millions of migratory sheep, which every year travel as much as two hundred miles from the plains to the "delectable mountains," where the shepherds feed them till the snows descend. These sheep are known as _transhumanies_ and their march, resting places, and behaviour are regulated by ancient and special laws and tribunals dating from the fourteenth century. At certain times no one is allowed to travel on the same route as the sheep, which have a right to graze on all open and common land on the way, and for which a road ninety yards wide must be left on all enclosed and private property. The shepherds lead the flocks, the sheep follow, and the flock is accompanied by mules carrying provisions, and large dogs which act as guards against the wolves. The Merino sheep travel four hundred miles to the mountains, and the total time spent on the migration there and back is fourteen weeks. In Thrace the migration of the flocks is to the northern ranges of Mount Rhodope. The sheep are said to be no less alert than the Pomak shepherds, obeying a signal to a.s.semble at any moment given by the shepherd's horn. The dogs are ferocious in the extreme, as the enemies of sheep in these parts are more commonly men than wild beasts, and the gentle shepherd, who has, since the Russo-Turkish War, exchanged his long gun for a Winchester rifle, shoots at sight and asks no questions.

The more nearly domestic sheep can approach the life of the primitive stock, the more intelligent their way of life becomes. The cleverest sheep live on the hills, and the stupidest on the plains. In Wales, for instance, if a new tenant takes over the flock of an outgoing tenant, the latter is by law allowed a higher price if the flock is one which knows the boundaries and paths on the hills. On the plains of Argentina, as Mr.

Hudson tells us, the lambs are born so stupid that they will run after a puff-ball rolling before the wind, mistaking it for their mother.

[1] This was a tremor of the great earthquake at Lisbon.

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 throughout their whole jurisdiction. The effect of this was not seen all at once; but little by little the waterfowl began to return, the kingfishers to increase, and all the birds along the banks grew tamer. Then the County Councils of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Berkshire forbade the killing of owls and kingfishers, and this practically made the river and its banks a sanctuary.

The water-hen are so numerous that at Nuneham Lock they run into the cottages, and at other locks the men complain they eat all their winter cabbages. As many as forty at a time have been counted on the meadows. Mr.

Harcourt has also established a wild-duck colony on and about the island at Nuneham. The island has a pond in the centre, with sedges and ancient willows and tall trees round. There the really wild ducks join the home-bred ones in winter. Lower down, the scene on late summer days is almost like a poultry-yard, with waterfowl and wild pigeons subst.i.tuted for ducks and chickens. Young water-hens of all sizes pipe and flutter in the reeds, and feed on the bank within a few feet of those rowing or fishing, and their only enemies are the cats, which, attracted by their numbers, leave the cottages for the river and stalk them, while the old water-hens in vain try to get their too tame young safe on to the water again.

Though kingfishers have increased fast they are less in evidence, being naturally shy after years of persecution. In summer they keep mainly at the back of the willows, away from the river, so long as the latter is crowded with boats.

It was not till November, 1899, that I saw the kingfishers at play, as I had long hoped to do, in such numbers as to make a real feature on the river. It was a brilliant, warm, sunny morning, such as sometimes comes in early winter, and I went down before breakfast to Clifton Bridge. There the shrill cry of the kingfishers was heard on all sides, and I counted seven, chasing each other over the water, darting in swift flight round and round the pool, and perching on the cam-shedding in a row to rest.

Presently two flew up and hovered together, like kestrels, over the stream. One suddenly plunged, came up with a fish, and flying to the other, which was still hovering, put the fish into its beak. After this pretty gift and acceptance both flew to the willows, where, let us hope, they shared their breakfast.

In a row down the river extending over ten miles I saw more than twenty kingfishers, most of them flying out, as is their custom, on the side of the willows and osiers averse from the river, but some being quite content to remain on their perches from which they fish, while the boat slipped down in midstream. As they sit absolutely motionless, and the reddish breast, and not the brilliant back, is turned to the water, it needs quick eyes to see these watchers by the stream.

The total prohibition of shooting on the water or banks is also producing the usual effect on the other birds and beasts. They are rapidly becoming tame, and the oarsman has the singular pleasure of floating down among all kinds of birds which do not regard him as an enemy. Young swallows sit fearlessly on the dead willow boughs to be fed by their parents; the reed-buntings and sedge-warblers scarcely move when the oar dips near the sedge on which they sit; wood-pigeons sit on the margin and drink where the pebble-banks or cattle-ways touch the water; and the water-rats will scarcely stop their business of peeling rushes to eat the pith, even if a boatload of children pa.s.ses by.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NIGHTJAR AND YOUNG ONE. _From a photograph by R.B. Lodge_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: REED BUNTING. _From a photograph by R.B. Lodge_.]

The return of the birds, and especially of wild fowl, to the London river is the result partly of the same causes which have restored the fish to its waters; partly, also, of measures affecting a wider area, but carried out with far less physical difficulty. Their presence is evidence that the tidal Thames now yields them a stock of food so abundant as to tempt birds like the heron, the water-hen, and the kingfisher back to their old haunts. It shows, secondly, that the by-laws for the protection of birds pa.s.sed by the counties of London, Surrey, and Middles.e.x, and by the Thames Conservancy (which was the pioneer in this direction by forbidding shooting on the river), are so far effective that the stock is rapidly increasing; and, lastly, that the birds are preserved and left in peace to a great extent on the London river itself. The following are the most marked instances of this return of river fowl which have come under the writer's notice; but in every case there have been preliminary advances on the part of the birds, which show that what is now recorded is only one step further in the general tendency to resume their old habits, or even to go beyond their former limits of place and time in resorting to the river. The herons from Richmond Park have extended their usual nightly fishing ground, which formerly ended at Kew Bridge, four miles further down the river, almost to Hammersmith Bridge, and in place of coming late at night, under cover of darkness, have made a practice of flying down at dusk, and pitching on the edge of Chiswick Eyot.[1] Their regular appearance led to various inquiries as to the nature of the "big birds like geese" which flew down the river and made a noise in the evening, questions which were answered, in one case, by the appearance of one of the birds as it swung round in the air opposite a terrace of houses, and dropped in the stream to fish, not twenty yards from the road. As the heron is naturally among the shyest of all waterside birds, and seeks solitude above all things, these visits show that the quant.i.ty of fish in the lower river must be great, and also that the London herons, now never shot at, are losing their inbred dislike of houses and humanity. Their footprints have been found on the mud opposite a creek in Hammersmith, round which is one of the most crowded quarters of the poorer folk of West London. The birds had been fishing within ten yards of the houses, which at this point are largely inhabited by organ-grinders and vendors of ice-creams, callings which do not promote quiet and solitude in the immediate neighbourhood. In the evening and early morning a few wild ducks accompany the herons as low as the reach above Hammersmith Bridge, and single ducks have been seen even at midday flying overhead. At sunrise one Midsummer Day I saw a sheldrake (probably an escaped bird) flying down the river, looking very splendid in its black, white, and red plumage, in the bright light of the morning. It haunted the reach for some days, and was not shot. Among other visitors to this part of the river and its island during spring were a curlew, which fed for some time on the eyot during the early morning, and a pair of pheasants, one of which, an old-fashioned English c.o.c.k bird, was subsequently captured unhurt. A flock of sandpipers remained there for some weeks, and during the summer numbers of sedge-warblers have nested on and around the eyot; the cuckoo has been a regular visitor to the osier-bed in the early morning, probably with a view to laying its eggs in the sedge-warblers' nests. As a set-off to these early visits of the cuckoo, a nightjar has hunted round the islet for moths, both at dusk and during the night, when its note may often be heard. This is a fairly long list of interesting birds revisiting a portion of the river which the London boundary crosses. At a distance of less than half a mile, on some ornamental water near the river, an even more unexpected increase of the bird population has been noted. A pair of kingfishers nested and reared their brood in an old gravel-pit, while several nests of young dabchicks hatched by the pool.[2] There also during the spring a pair of tufted ducks appeared, and remained for some days before going on their journey to their breeding haunts. One lamentable event in the bird life of the Thames deserves mention. A pair of swans ventured to nest within a few hundred feet of the London boundary. The hen, a very shy young bird, laid three eggs on Chiswick Eyot, and the pair, being supplied with material, diligently built up their nest day by day until it was above the tide level. They sat for five weeks, the c.o.c.k bird keeping anxious guard day and night, while the hen would probably have died of starvation unless fed by kindly neighbours, for the river affords very little food for a swan, and this required far longer time to find than the bird was willing to spare from her nest. This was then robbed in the night, and the c.o.c.k bird maltreated in defending it. The return of fish and fowl to the London Thames shows by the best of tests that the efforts of the Thames Conservancy to preserve the amenities of the river, of the Sewage Committee of the County Council to maintain its purity, or rather to render it less impure at its mouth, and of the adjacent County Authorities to protect bird life, are all yielding good results, and justify the courage with which such an apparently hopeless task was undertaken. To the Conservancy I would offer one or two suggestions, which County Councillors might also consider. The river is the only large _natural_ feature still left in the area of London and Greater London. Now that it contains water in place of sewage, there is a guarantee that its main element as a natural amenity in a great city will be maintained, and as it becomes purer, so will the facilities which it offers for boating, fishing, and bathing increase. But it should not be _embanked_ beyond the present limit at Putney. Stone walls are not a thing of beauty, and a natural river-bank is. At present, from Putney to Richmond the greater part of the Thames flows between natural boundaries.

If these can be maintained, the growth of willows, sedge, hemlock, reeds, water ranunculus, and many other fine and luxuriant plants affords insect food for the fish and shelter for the birds, besides giving to the river its natural floral border. If this is replaced by stone banks the birds and the fish will move elsewhere.

[1] Mr. J.E. Vincent tells me that in 1902 the herons were heard as far down the river as Chelsea.

[2] In the beautiful grounds of Chiswick House, where the present occupier, Dr. T. Tuke, carefully preserves all wild birds.

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. But osiers may be grown anywhere on good ground, and are a rapid and paying crop, giving very little trouble, though they need some attention even on the banks of tidal rivers. It is estimated that in the whole of Great Britain there are only between 7,000 and 8,000 acres of osier beds, but these average three tons of rods per acre, and the value of the crop when harvested is often at least 15 per acre gross return. As fruit cultivation is immensely increasing in England, there is a corresponding increase in the demand for baskets to put the fruit in. This is the main reason why osiers, unlike most farm crops, keep up their price. Immense quant.i.ties are now imported from Belgium, France, and Germany because our own crop is not nearly sufficient.[1] They do not require a wet soil or to be near water: all that the willow roots need is that the land shall be good and not too dry or sandy. Stagnant, boggy ground does not suit them at all, though they will grow well in light loam. Many species of osier are of most brilliant colouring in winter and early spring. In some the rods are golden yellow; in others the bark is almost scarlet with a bright polish, and the osier bed forms a brilliant object from December to February, just before the rods are cut. The kind of willow grown varies from the slender, tough withes used in making small baskets and eel-traps, to the large, fast-growing rods suited for making crates for heavy goods.

The planter must find out for which kind there is the readiest market in the neighbourhood, and then get his land ready. It needs thorough clearing and trenching to the depth of from twenty to thirty inches. The young osiers should then be put in. These should be taken from a nursery in which they have been "schooled" for one year, as in that case they will produce a crop fit to cut one year earlier than if the cuttings have been put at once in the new osier-bed. The cuttings when transferred to the bed should be put in twelve inches apart in the rows, and these rows made at two feet distance from each other. They will need hoeing to keep the ground clear, which will cost l to 2 per acre for the first two years, and this should be done before the middle of June. When the osiers are well started they grow so densely that they kill out the weeds themselves.

The rate of growth even on ordinary field-land is astonishing; they will add eighteen inches in a week. February and March are the months for planting, and March also sees the osier harvest when the time comes to cut them. In the fens the harvesting of the rods begins earlier, but this depends usually on the season, the object being to cut them before the sap begins to rise. Osiers particularly invite the attention of those who are desirous of planting coverts for game. They are a paying crop, and a quick crop, giving cover sooner and of better quality than almost any other form of underwood, and are also very ornamental. It is true that they are cut yearly, but this is not till the shooting season is over. Meantime there is no covert which pheasants like so much as osier-beds, especially if they are near water.

On Chiswick Eyot, which is entirely planted with osiers, there are standing at the time of writing six stacks of bundles set upright. Each stack contains about fifty bundles of the finest rods, nine feet high.

Thus the eyot yields at least three hundred bundles. This osier-bed is cut quite early in the year, usually in January, and by February all the fresh rods are planted. Before being peeled the osiers are stood upright in water for a month, and some begin to bud again. This is to make the sap run up, I presume, by which means the bark comes off more readily. I believe that the Chiswick osiers, being of the largest size, are used for making crates, and that they are cut early because there is no need to peel them.

Water-cress growing is an increasing business in the Thames Valley, where the head of every little brook or river in the chalk is used for this purpose. This is good both for business in general and for the fish, for water-cress causes the acc.u.mulation of a vast quant.i.ty of fish food in various forms.

The artificial culture of water-cress is comparatively modern, and a remarkably pretty side-industry of the country.

Formerly, the cress gatherer was usually a gipsy, or "vagrom man," who wandered up to the springs and by the head waters of brooks at dawn, and took his cresses as the mushroom-gatherer takes mushrooms--by dint of early rising and trespa.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PEELING OSIERS. _From a photograph by Taunt & Co_.]

The places where water-cress grows naturally are usually singularly attractive. The plant grows best where springs actually bubble from the ground, either where the waters break out on the lower sides of the chalk downs, or in some limestone-begotten stream where springs rise, sometimes for a distance of one or two miles, bubbling and swelling in the very bed of the brook. There, among dead reeds and flags, the pale green cresses appear very early in the spring, for the water is always warmer which rises from the bosom of the earth. Trout and wild duck haunt the same spots, and one often sees, stuck on a board in the stream, a notice warning off the poor water-cress gatherer, who was supposed to poach the fish.

The happy-go-lucky cress gathering is now a thing of the past, and there are few rural industries more skilfully and profitably conducted. I knew a farmer who, having lost all his capital on a large farm on the downs, took as a last resource to growing the humble "creases" by the springs below.

He has now made money once more, and been able to take and cultivate another farm nearly as large as that he worked before, while the area of his water-cress beds still grows.

Wherever a chalk stream, however small, breaks out of the hills, it is usual to let it to a water-cress grower. He widens the channels, and year by year every square foot of the upper waters is planted with cress. Each year, too, new and larger beds are added below, and the cresses creep down the stream. When they encroach on good sp.a.w.ning ground this is very bad for trout; but the beds are pretty enough, forming successive flats, on different levels, of vivid green.

The scene on the Water-cress Farm shows the complete metamorphosis undergone by what was once a swift running brook when once the new culture is taken in hand. When left to Nature, the little chalk stream might truly have said, in the words of the poem--

"I murmur under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses, I linger by my shingly bars, I loiter round my cresses."

Now all the brambles and shingle are gone, and the stream is condemned to "loiter round its cresses," and to do nothing else. The water must not be more than six inches deep, and it must not flow too fast. To secure these conditions little dams, some made of earth and some of boards, are built from side to side of the brook. The water thus appears to descend in a series of steps, each communicating with the next by earthen pipes, through which the water spouts. When a fresh bed of cresses is to be planted, which is done usually towards the end of summer, a sluice is opened, and only an inch or so of water left. On this cuttings from the cress are strewn, which soon take root, and make a bed fit for gathering by next spring.

From February to April the cresses are at their best. Their flavour is good, their leaves crisp, and they come at a time when no outdoor salad can be grown. As the beds are set close to the fresh springs, they are seldom frozen. Hence, in very hard weather all the birds flock to the cress-beds, where they find running water and a certain quant.i.ty of food.

If the beds do freeze, the cress is destroyed, and the loss is very serious.

Gathering cresses is a very pleasant job in summer, but in early spring one of the most cheerless occupations conceivable short of gathering Iceland moss. The men wear waterproof boots, reaching up the thighs, and thick stockings inside these. But the water is icy cold. The cress plants are then not tall, as they are later, but short and bushy. They need careful picking, too, in order not to injure the second crop. Then the cold and dripping cresses have to be trimmed, tied into bundles, and packed. When "dressed" they are laid in strong, flat hampers, called "flats," the lids of which are squeezed down tight on to them. The edges are then cut neatly with a sharp knife, and the baskets placed in running water, until the carts are ready to drive them to the station. Not London only but the great towns of the North consume the cress grown in the South of England. A great part of that grown in the springs which break out under the Berkshire Downs goes to Manchester.

One basket holds about two hundred large bunches. From each of these a dozen of the small bunches retailed at a penny each can be made; and every square rod of the cress-bed yields two baskets at a cutting.

In one of the East London suburbs, near to the reservoirs of a water company, it has been found worth while to create an artificial spring, by making an arrangement with the waterworks for a constant supply. This flows from a stand-pipe and irrigates the cress-beds, which produce good cresses, though not of such fine flavour as those grown in natural spring water and upon a chalk soil.

[1] Fishermen in the Isle of Wight send all the way to the Midlands to get the little scarlet withes required for making lobster-pots.

FOG AND DEW PONDS