Tring Park
Rare birds, as well as various maritime species driven from their normal resorts by stress of weather, make their appearance occasionally in various parts of the county, but references to very few of such cases must suffice. During the great visitation of sand-grouse (a bird normally characteristic of the steppes of Central Asia) to the British Isles in 1863, some individuals reached this county. In the early part of last century a little auk, or rotche, was taken on the millhead at Wheathampstead during very severe weather; a great northern diver has been seen on Tring reservoir; a pair of storm petrels were killed some five-and-twenty years ago at Hemel Hempstead, where snow-buntings have likewise been seen; while various species of gulls from time to time put in an appearance in winter. Among recent events of this nature the appearance at Harpenden of an immature specimen of the great purple heron is certainly noteworthy. In 1878 the late Mr J. E. Littleboy had recorded 201 species of birds from the county, and a few others have been added since, bringing up the number to 210 in 1902.
In regard to fishes, it is of interest to quote the following passage from Sir Henry Chauncy’s Historical Antiquities of Hertfordshire, published early in the eighteenth century. After referring to its other fish, it is there stated, in the author’s quaint language, that the river Lea also contains “some Salmons; which (like young Deer) have several denominations: the first Year they are called Salmon-smelts, the second Year Salmon-sprats, the third Year Salmon-forktails, the fourth Year Salmon-peall, the fifth Year Salmonets, and the sixth Year Salmon; and if these Fish had free Passage by the Mills, and thro’ the Sluices at Waltham up the Stream towards Ware and Hertford, where they might Spawn in fresh Water and were carefully preserved from Pochers, they would greatly increase in that River, and be of great benefit, as well to the City of London as the Country; for some Water-men have observed, that they delight in this Stream, and play much about those Sluices at Waltham.”
Chauncy likewise mentions that trout from the Lea below Hertford, where it has peaty banks, are much less red than those from the gravelly streams of the chalk districts.
For botanical purposes the county has been divided into six districts corresponding to the river-basins; the first two belonging to the Ouse system, and comprising the Cam and the Ivel basins, and the other four, comprising the Thame, the Colne, the Brent, and the Lea, pertaining to the Thames system. Of these the Lea area is the largest, the Colne next in size, the Ivel considerably smaller, and the other three quite small. In some respects the local characters of the flora are, however, better brought out by taking the geological formations as a basis of division. The Upper Chalk area, capped with much Boulder-clay on the eastern, and with clay-and-flints and gravel on the western side, corresponds very closely as regards these divisions with the Lea and the Colne basins. The Middle Chalk, which as we have seen is exposed on the flanks of the continuation of the Chiltern Hills in the north-west, is peculiar in being the only area in the county in which grows the pasque-flower, or anemone; this chiefly flourishing on south-westerly slopes, as at Aldbury Towers, near Tring. The Middle Chalk is also the chief home of the various kinds of orchis; the dwarf, the man, and the butterfly orchis being apparently restricted to this formation. The Tertiary area has a vegetation of a totally different type from the so-called “dry-plant type” characteristic of the Chalk area, but it cannot be further mentioned here.
In the five adjacent counties there occur 110 species of flowering plants unknown in Hertfordshire. On the other hand, Hertfordshire has about a dozen plants (exclusive of varieties of the bramble) unknown in the adjacent counties. Of the 893 native flowering plants of Hertfordshire about 110 have not been recorded from Cambridgeshire, while about 120 are wanting in Bedfordshire, 170 in Buckinghamshire, 140 in Middlesex, and 100 in Essex. These figures may, however, be subject to considerable modification by future research. The following passage on the relations of the Hertfordshire flora is quoted from the Victoria History of the Counties of England:—
“Taking the number of species in any adjoining county which are absent from Hertfordshire as the best index of the degree of relationship, it would appear that the flora of Bucks is the most nearly allied to that of Herts, and that those of Cambridge and Essex are the most divergent.... This is just what might be expected from the physical features and geological structure of these counties. The floras of Cambridge and Essex have also a more northern or north-eastern facies [character] than that of Hertfordshire, which is of a decidedly southern type. The large number of Hertfordshire species which have not yet been recorded from Buckinghamshire is probably due to the flora of that county not having been so thoroughly investigated as ours has been.”