The Naturalist on the Thames

by C. J. Cornish

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.

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]

"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 before on the subject of the continued increase of fish in the London Thames. It turned out to be as I expected; my visitor was one of the last local fishermen, and brought with him a splendid silver eel, weighing nearly 4 lb., taken in his nets that evening just opposite Chiswick Eyot. It was the largest eel taken so low down for some years, and when held up at arm's length, was a good imitation of one of Madame Paula's pythons in the advertisement. He was anxious that I should come out for an evening's netting and see for myself how clear the water now is, and how good the fish. The previous summer, about the same date, I had asked him to see what he could catch in an evening as specimens; he had returned with over ninety fish, dace, roach, eels, barbel, and smelts, many of which were exhibited alive the next day before a good many people interested in the purification of the Thames. As a further proof I forwarded the big eel to the previous chairman of the London County Council, under whose sceptre the marked improvement in the river began first to be felt, and begged his acceptance of it as a tribute from the river. Then I arranged to be at the old ferry next day at 6.30 p.m.

It was the end of a blazing hot London day when I went down the hard to the water's edge, among the small, pink-legged boys, paddling, and the usual group of contemplative workmen, who smoke their pipes by the landing place. The river was half empty, and emptying itself still more as the ebb ran down. The haze of heat and twilight blurred shapes and colours, but the fine old houses of the historic "Mall," the tower of the church, and the tall elms and taller chimneys of the breweries, which divide with torpedo boats the credit of being the staple industries of Chiswick, stood out all black against the evening sky; the clashing of the rivetters had ceased in the shipyard, but the river was cheerfully noisy; many eights were practising between the island and the Surrey bank, coaches were shouting at them, a tug was taking a couple of deal-loaded barges to a woodwharf with much puffing and whistling, and bathers, sheltered by the eyot willows, were keeping up loud and breathless conversations. "Not exactly the kind of surroundings the fishermen seeks," you will say; but, apparently, London fish get used to noise. Our boat was what I, speaking unprofessionally, should call a small sea-boat, but I believe she was built years ago at Strand-on-the-Green, the pretty old village with maltings and poplar trees that fringes the river below Kew Bridge. She was painted black and red, and furnished with a shelf, rimmed with an inch-high moulding inboard and drained by holes, to catch the drip from the net as it was hauled in. We were at work in two minutes. The net was fastened at one end to two buoys; these dropped down with the ebb, and formed a fixed, yet floating, point--if that is not a bull--from which the boat was rowed in a circle while one of the brothers who own the boat payed out the net. Thus we kept rowing in circles, alternately dropping and hauling in the net, as we slipped down what was once the Bishop of London's Fishery towards Fulham. There are still no flounders on the famous Bishop's Muds, but other fish were in evidence at once. Though the heat had made them go to the bottom, we had one or two at every haul. The two fishermen were fine specimens of strong, well-built Englishmen. The pace at which they hauled in the net, or rowed the boat round, was great; the rower could complete the circle--a wide one--in a minute, and the net was hauled in in less time, if the hauler chose to. Dace were our main catch--bright silvery fish, about three to the pound, for they do not run large in the tideway; but they were in perfect condition, and quite as good to eat, when cooked, as fresh herring. For some reason the Jews of London prefer these fresh-water fish; they eat them, not as the old Catholics did, on fasts, but for feasts. They will fetch 2d. each at the times of the Jews' holidays, so our fisherman told me, and find a ready sale at all times, though at low prices. Formerly the singularly bright scales were saved to make mother-of-pearl, or rather, to coat objects which were wished to resemble mother-of-pearl. After each haul the fish were dropped into a well in the middle of the boat. A few roach were taken, and an eel; but the most interesting part of the catch was the smelts. These sea-fish now ascend the Thames as they did before the river was polluted. We took about a dozen, some of very large size; they smelt exactly like freshly-sliced cucumber. I stayed for an hour, till the twilight was turning to dark, and the tugs' lights began to show. We had by then caught seventy fish, or rather more than one per minute; a hundred is a fair catch on a summer evening. In winter very large hauls are made; then the fish congregate in holes and corners. In summer they are all over the river. When the net happens to enclose one of these shelter holes, hundreds may be taken. Consequently the two fishermen work regularly all through the winter. Sometimes their net is like iron wire, frozen into stiff squares. In a recent hard winter the ice floated up and down the London Thames in lumps and floes; yet they managed to fish, and made a record catch of two thousand in one tide. I believe that if the Conservancy and the County Council go on as they are doing, we shall see the flounder back in the river above bridges, and that possibly sea-trout may adventure there too; though unless the latter can get up to spawn, there can be no regular run of sea-trout. But they probably also act like grey mullet, and run up the estuaries merely for a cruise. [1]