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C. J. Cornish - The Naturalist on the Thames
darker, lower, and wetter clouds, even more surcharged with water, from which the deluge poured till the
earth was white like glass with the spraying drops. Out in the fields it was impossible to see through the
rain; but as the end of the column of cloud began to break and widen the water could be seen in the act of
passing from the land to the river. On the fallows and under the fences all the surface earth was beaten
down or swept away. All seeds which had sunk naturally below the surface were laid bare. Hundreds of
sprouting horse chestnuts, of sprouting acorns beneath the trees, thousands of grains of fallen wheat and
barley, of beans, and other seeds of the farm were uncovered as if by a spade.
Down every furrow, drain, watercourse, ditch, runnel, and watercut, the turbid waters were hurrying, all
with one common flow, all with increasing speed, to the Thames. The sound of waters filled the air,
dropping, poppling, splashing, trickling, dripping from leaves to earth, falling from bank to rills below,
gurgling under gate-paths, lapping against the tree-trunks and little ridge piles in the brooks, and at last
sweeping with a hushed content into the bosom of Thames. And the river himself was good for
something more than a "stree-um." He was bank-full and sweeping on, taking to himself on this side and
on that the tributes of his children, from which the waters poured so fast that they came in almost clear,
and the mingled waters in the river were scarcely clouded in their flow. The lock-men rose by night and
looked at the climbing flood, and wakened their wives and children, and raised in haste hatch after hatch
of the weirs, and threw open locks and gates. Windsor Weir broke, but the wires flashed the news on, and
the river's course was open, and after the greatest rain-storm and the lowest barometer known for thirty
years, the Thames was not in flood, but only brimful; and once more a "river of waters."
THE SHELLS OF THE THAMES
Of the thousands who boat on the Thames during the summer few know or notice the beauty of the river
shells. They are among the most delicate objects of natural ornament and design in this country.
Exquisite pattern, graceful shapes, and in some cases lovely tints of colour adorn them. Nature has for
once relaxed in their favour her rigid rules, by which she turns out things of this kind not only alike in
shape, but with identical colour and ornament. Among humming-birds, for instance, each bird is like the
other, literally to a feather. The lustre on each ruby throat or amethyst wing shines in the same light with
the same prismatic divisions. But even in the London river, if you go and seek among the pebbles above
Hammersmith Bridge when the river is low, you may find a score of neretina shells not one of
which is coloured like the rest or ornamented with exactly the same pattern, yet each is fit to bejewel the
coronet of some Titania of the waters. A number of these tiny shells, gathered from below the bridge, lie
before the writer, set on black satin to display the hues. They look at a little distance like a series of
mixed Venetian beads, but of more elegant form. From whichever side they are seen, the curves are the
perfection of flowing line. The colouring and ornament of each is a marvel and delight. Some are black,
with white spots arranged in lines following the curves, and with the top of the blunt spiral white. These
"black-and-white marble" patterns are followed by a whole series in which purple takes the place of
black, and the spots are modified into scales. Then comes a row of rose-coloured shells, some with white
lance-heads, or scales, others with alternate bands of white scales and white dots. Some are polished,
others dull, some rosy pink, others almost crimson. Some are marked with cream and purple like the
juice of black currants with cream in it. In some the scale pattern changes to a chequer, some are white
with purple zig-zags. And lastly come a whole series in pale olive, and olive and cream, in which the
general colour is that of a blackcap's egg, and the pattern made by alternate spots of olive and bands of
cream. If these little gems of beauty come out of the London river, what may we not expect in the upper
waters of the silver Thames?[1] A search in the right places in its course will show. But these
neretinae are everywhere up to the source of the river, for they feed on all kinds of decaying
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