stag. The astonishing catching power of a net held him enmeshed at all
points. His muzzle was held by one mesh, his horns by three or four; all
four feet were caught also. In addition, about eight men kindly caught
hold of his horns, legs, and back, to prevent him hurting himself. This he
was far too clever to do. He just lay quiet, calmly regarding the fun with
his upper eye, and wondering when the deuce they were going to take him
"out of that." In a very few minutes his feet were buckled together by
soft straps, and a saw trimmed off his antler tops, for which we felt
sorry, but there was not room for them in the "compartment" he was to
travel in. It is only when a stag lies close before you on the ground that
you realise that he is not a "slab-sided," flat-ribbed animal, but a
bulky, well-rounded beast. It took six men to lift him on to the bed of
fern in "Her Majesty's cart," and when there he quickly twisted round, and
lay couched, bound but not subdued, calmly regarding the scene over the
side of his cart. A nice lot of chopped mangold root had been put in his
box, and we hope he enjoyed his lunch in the train on his way to Windsor.
[Illustration: A NETTED STAG. _From a drawing by Lancelot Speed_.]
The next drive was far more rapid, and its results more exciting. The
stags were again brought round from above Penn Pond, then through the oak
grove below White Lodge, and came galloping up the long side of the slope,
straight for the nets. Then the brace of deerhounds, which, like the
keeper, seemed to know the game thoroughly, were slipped, and most
beautiful they looked, one laying out, lithe and low, just parallel with
the haunch of one stag, the other driving the brace below. The single stag
charged the nets and was enveloped as before, but the other brace broke
back and escaped.
Four in all were taken during the day, without accident or mishap. One of
the keepers did have an accident of a rather curious kind, when assisting
to catch stags at Buckhurst Park in Kent. He was galloping as hard as he
could, driving a stag, when his horse cannoned up against another deer
which was lying crouched in the fern, as deer sometimes do. The horse went
a complete somersault, and its rider was badly bruised and hurt, though no
bones were broken.
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 thousand of
those who visit and enjoy the park on the hill which we call Richmond Park
has ever set foot, except in the corner furthest from the river to see a
horse-show or a cricket-match. Old it certainly is. The park on the hill,
venerable as it looks now, is only a thing of yesterday in comparison with
it. Charles I. made the latter, and the Penn Ponds were dug by the
Princess Amelia. The Old Deer Park was a Royal demesne when the Saxon
Kings had their palace at Sheen, before it was given its new name of
Richmond by the first Tudor, after the Castle in Yorkshire from which he
took his title when a subject. In the middle of this ancient and forgotten
park, forgotten because it is neither reserved for the pleasure of the
Sovereign nor thrown open for the enjoyment of his subjects, it was lately
proposed to build a scientific laboratory, to supplement the work of the
observatory, which is mainly employed in magnetic observations and in
testing thermometers and chronometers. The proposal is an instance of the
mischief which may be done by precedent, and of the way in which Royal
favour may be misused quite unconsciously by persons who forget that the
circumstances which lent grace and propriety to a concession at one time
may be so altered later that to presume on it is an error of judgment.
George III. instructed Chambers, the architect, who had been doing work
for him at Kew, to erect an observatory in the Old Park. It was a
thoughtful act, at a time when there were no public funds for the
encouragement of science, and when the study of astronomy was still
regarded partly as something peculiarly under Royal patronage because its
practical use was to keep and make records to ensure the safe navigation
of his Majesty's ships.
The application to erect new buildings was refused, for a place like the
Old Deer Park, if kept open and wild, and not built upon, has a present
and future value to the health and happiness of millions of people beyond
any calculation or power of words.
It does not need much imagination to make this forecast. But as few people
have ever made what, in the old words of forest law, was called a
"perambulation" of the park, some description of its present condition and
appearance may help to form an opinion. It is the largest and finest
riverside park in England. It covers nearly four hundred acres, but this
great area, as large as Hyde Park, is shaped and placed so as to gain the
maximum of beauty and convenience from its surroundings. On the London
side it has for neighbour the whole depth of Kew Gardens, from the road at
the back to the river at the front--two hundred and eighty acres of garden
and wood. But whoever first acquired the land for the park, whether Norman
or Saxon, very rightly thought that the feature to be desired was to make
the most of the river-front, where the Thames, pushing into Middlesex,
cuts "a huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle, out." Whether by accident or
design, the park is like a half-open fan, narrowest at the back, which is
the ugly or plain side, near the road, and with its widest part unbosoming
on the Thames. From back to front it is some half-mile deep; but the
Thames front extends for a mile along one of the most beautiful river
scenes in England.
On the Kew Gardens border it lies against what was, until a few years ago,
the wild and private part of Kew. To this it served as an open park, where
all the birds drew out to sun themselves and feed. So they do still. Along
the margin are scattered old beech trees, and a wilderness of long grass
and flowers, where wood-pigeons, thrushes, pheasants, crows, jays, and all
the smaller birds of the gardens may be seen sunning themselves. The
narrow end or "stick" of the "fan," near the road, is leased to a cricket
club, and cut off from the greater area by a belt of young plantation. In
this a brood of partridges hatches nearly every year, though what becomes
of the birds later is only conjectured. Beyond this cross-belt the whole
area of the park stretches out, ever widening, and with an imperceptible
fall, to the Thames. It is studded here and there with very large and very
ancient trees, and is one of the largest and least broken areas of ancient
pasture, whether for deer or cattle, in England. Until lately the old
observatory was the only building upon it, and the turf was unbroken. But
recent years have added two disfigurements. One is a large red building
with skylights, connected with the games and athletic sports, which have
found a more or less permanent home in the upper part of the park, where
the annual horse-shows are held, uses for which that part of the ground is
well suited. The other is a permanent and very deplorable blemish, made
purposely, in the interests of the popular game of the hour. The greater
part of this fine park has been leased to a private golf club. Golf, as
every one knows, originally flourished on sand dunes, which are about as
completely the natural opposite of an old flat park of ancient pasture as
can be found in this country. The golf club have been allowed to do what
they can to remedy this defect of Nature by converting the Old Park into a
sand dune, and this they have done by digging holes and throwing up
dozens, or scores, of bunkers. But the margins of the park are quite
unspoilt, and the river-front is the wildest and the freest piece of
Nature left near London. It is completely bounded by an ancient moat,
beyond which lies the towing-path, and beyond that the river and the
ancient and picturesque front of Isleworth. The path between the moat and
the river is set with ancient trees, mostly horse-chestnuts and beech, in
continuous line. Under their branches and between their stems the visitor
in the park sees a series of pictures, framed by trees and branches, of
the Queen Anne houses and rose-gardens of Isleworth, the old church with
its tower and huge sun-dial, the ferry and the old inn of the "London
Apprentice," the poplars and willows of the Isleworth eyots, the granaries
and mills where the little Hounslow stream falls in, and further
Twickenham way the gardens of the fine villas there, while towards London
the pavilions and park of Syon House begin. At the present moment the
margin of the Old Deer Park and its moat give a mile of beauty and
refreshment. No one has troubled to mow the grass or cut the weeds, or
clear the moat, or meddle with the hedge beyond it. So the moat, which is
filled from the river when necessary, and is not stagnant, is full of
water-flowers, and quite clear, and fringed with a deep bed of reeds and
sedges. In it are shoals of dace, and minnow, and gudgeon, and
sticklebacks, and plenty of small pike basking in the sun. The largest and
bluest forget-me-nots, and water-mints, and big water-docks and burdocks
flourish in the water, and the hedge beyond is full of sweet elder in
flower, and covered with wild hops. Huge elms, partly decaying, and a dark
grove of tall beeches line the park near the moat, and besides water and
flowers there is shade and the motion of leaves. If the proposal to build
on such a site leads to a better knowledge of what this ancient park
really is, and its value to the amenities of the capital, it will have
done good, not harm. The late Queen recently presented the cottage in the
reserved part of Kew Gardens and its precincts for the use of the public.
It would seem that a similar sacrifice has been made by Royalty in the
case of the Old Deer Park, but that the public are excluded by the Office
of Woods and Forests, which has charge of it, and the park neglected and
disfigured. If it were put on the same footing as Richmond Park upon the
hill, and communication were open between the park and Kew Gardens at
proper hours, an unequalled domain, still the property of the Crown, but
enjoyed within reasonable limitations by every subject, would be open from
Kew Green practically to Kingston. The line from the boundary of the Old
Deer Park is taken on by Richmond Green, and the towing-path to the
Terrace Gardens, formerly the property of the Duke of Buccleuch, and now
of the Richmond Corporation, thence by the terrace and the open slope
under it to Richmond Park, through Sudbrook Park to Ham Common, a series
of varied scenery unrivalled even in the valley of the Thames.
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
interesting and deserve every encouragement, and it may be hoped that
money will be forthcoming to make more.
As regards other fish than salmon, their return has been going on steadily
since 1890; and their advance has covered a distance of some twenty
miles--from Gravesend to Teddington. The first evidence was the
reappearance of whitebait, small crabs, and jelly-fish at Gravesend in
1892. In 1893 the whitebait fishermen and shrimp-boats were busy ten miles
higher than they had been seen at work for many years. The condenser tubes
of torpedo-boats running their trials down the river were found to be
choked with "bait," and buckets of the fish were shown at the offices of
the London County Council in Spring Gardens. It was claimed that this
evidence of the increased purity of the water was mainly due to the
efforts of the Main Drainage Committee of the London County Council. There
is abundant evidence that this claim was correct, for instead of allowing
the whole of the London sewage to fall into the Thames at Barking and
Crossness, the County Council used a process to separate all the solid
matter, and carried it out to sea. The results of the first year's efforts
were that over two million tons were shipped beyond the Nore, ten thousand
tons of floating refuse were cleared away, and the liquid effluent was
largely purified. It was predicted at the time that if this process was
continued on the same scale it would not be long before the commoner
estuary fishes appeared above London Bridge, even if the migratory salmon
and sea-trout still held aloof. Unfortunately there has been some
deviation from the methods of dealing with the sewage, a change from which
we believe that some of the officials concerned with the early
improvements very strongly dissented, that has to some extent retarded the
advance of the fish. But in 1895 a sudden "spurt" took place in their
return. Whitebait became so plentiful that during the whole of the winter
and spring the results were obvious, not only to naturalists, but on the
London market. Whitebait shoals swarmed in the Lower Thames and the
Medway, and became a cheap luxury even in February and March. They were
even so suicidally reckless as to appear off Greenwich. Supplies of fresh
fish came into the market twice daily, and were sold retail at sixpence
per quart. The Thames flounders once more reappeared off their old haunt
at the head of the Bishop of London's fishery near Chiswick Eyot. Only one
good catch was made, and none have been taken since; but this had not been
done for twelve years, and there is a prospect of their increase, for, in
the words of old Robert Binnell, Water Bailiff of the City of London in
1757, we may "venture to affirm that there is no river in all Europe that
is a better nourisher of its fish, and a more speedy breeder, particularly
of the flounder, than is the Thames." Eels were also taken in considerable
numbers between Hammersmith and Kew; but the main supply of London eels
came from Holland even in the days of London salmon. In a very old print
of the City, with traitors' heads by the dozen on London Bridge, "Eale
Schippes," exactly like the Dutch boats lying at this moment off
Billingsgate, are shown anchored in the river. Besides the estuary fish
which naturally come _up_ river, dace and roach began to come
_down_ into the tideway, and during the whole summer the lively
little bleak swarmed round Chiswick Eyot. Later in the year the roach and
dace were seen off Westminster, and several were caught below London
Bridge, and in 1900 roach were seen and caught at Woolwich, but were soon
poisoned and died. In August the delicate smelts suddenly reappeared at
Putney, where they had not been seen in any number for many years. Later,
in September, another migration of smelts passed right up the river. Many
were caught at Isleworth and Kew, and finally they penetrated to the limit
of the tideway at Teddington, and good baskets were made at Teddington
Lock.
[Illustration: BREAM AND ROACH. _From a photograph by E. Seeley_.]
This additional evidence of the satisfaction of the fish with the County
Council does not quite satisfy us that the London river is yet clean
enough to give passage to the migratory salmon. It is encouraging to the
County Council, who deserve all the credit they can get; but there is
little doubt that the best evidence that the river is fit for the salmon
would be the spontaneous appearance of the salmon themselves.
Since the middle of June, 1890, large shoals of dace, bleak, roach, and
small fry have appeared in all the reaches, from Putney upwards. A few
years ago hardly any fish were to be seen below Kew during the summer, and
these were sickly and diseased. Last year they were in fine condition, and
dace eagerly took the fly even on the lower reaches. Every flood-tide
hundreds of "rises" of dace, bleak, and roach were seen as the tide began
to flow, or rather as the sea-water below pushed the land-water before it
up the river. At high water little creeks, draw-docks, and boat-landings
were crowded with healthy, hungry fish, and old riverside anglers, whose
rods had been put away for years, caught them by dozens with the fly.
Sixty dozen dace were taken, mainly with the fly, in a single creek, which
for some years has produced little in the way of living creatures but
waterside rats. I counted twenty-two "rises" in a minute in a length of
twenty yards inside the eyot at Chiswick. During one high tide in July a
sight commonly seen in a summer flood on the Isis or Cherwell was
witnessed not sixty yards from the boundary stone of the county of London.
The tide rose so far as to fringe several lawns by the river with a yard
or two of shallow water, and the fish at once left the river and crowded
into this shallow overflow, their backs occasionally showing above it, to
escape the muddy clouds in the tidal water. There were hundreds of fish in
the shoals, of all kinds and sizes, from dace nine inches long, with a few
roach, to sticklebacks. These fish are probably the descendants of spawn
laid in the _tidal_ parts of the river, on the gravel-beds and weeds.
Doubtless the quantity of fresh water from the spring rains contributed
something to the result, but the spawn must have hatched far more
successfully than usual.
[Illustration: A GRAMPUS AT CHISWICK. _From a drawing by Lancelot Speed_.]
Rivermen on the tidal Thames always distinguish between eels and "fish."
The former are also increasing greatly. The sole survivor of the "Peter
boats" left on the river is saved from disappearing like the rest of the
race by eel-fishing. Formerly these boats, whose owners lived and slept on
board them for six months in the year, were quite successful in catching
eels and flounders. In the Chiswick parish registers a number of those
married or buried are entered as being "fishermen," which clearly means
that that was their business in life. The number of professed eel
catchers' boats gradually dwindled to one, and the owner of this catches a
fair quantity of most excellent eels, those taken off Mortlake, opposite
the finish of the University boat-race, being especially fine in flavour.
Another eel-like fish, formerly taken in great numbers, and of the finest
quality, but now almost forgotten, is also returning. This is the lampern.
Lamperns, unlike eels, come into the rivers to spawn, and go back to the
sea later or to the brackish waters. Men employed in scooping gravel out
of the river at Hammersmith, lately noticed numbers of lamperns coming up
on to the gravel-beds at low-water, and moving the gravel into little
hollows, previously to dropping their spawn. Twelve years ago the great
body of the migrating lamperns were all poisoned by the river, and lay in
tens of thousands in the mud at Blackwall Point. As they have now
succeeded in getting up to spawn, the shoals may be seen next year in
something like their old numbers. The flounders have not yet reappeared to
stay. Porpoises come up above London nearly every year. The first I saw
were two above Hammersmith Bridge early on that momentous May morning in
1886, when Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill was thrown out. I had been
up with a friend to hear the result of the division, and had seen the wild
joy which followed its announcement in the lobby, and then walked home at
dawn, and so met the early porpoises. A few years later a fine grampus was
found one night lying half dead by the bows of one of the torpedo-boat
destroyers at Chiswick. Its "lines" struck the expert minds there as so
good that it was carefully measured, and the results were found to
correspond almost exactly with a mathematical curve--I think called a
curve of sines. The hollow over the blow-hole was filled up with mud and
measured over, and here there was a little discrepancy. The mud was
removed, and the measurement taken over the surface of the hollow, and the
figures found to be what were expected.
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, 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 fishing 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 masses 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 grass 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 grass,
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