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C. J. Cornish - The Naturalist on the Thames
travelling host of tent-dwellers. Each "base" is properly organised and supplied, and visitors can purchase
necessaries, in addition to the fish and birds which fall to rod and gun. Ladies and children are among
those who enjoy the pastime most keenly, amusing themselves by the river and among the woods while
the husbands hunt or fish.
The "residential cottage" is perhaps the safer basis for the complete outdoor life, though it tends to reduce
the number of hours spent in the open. Habit is too strong when once we are under a roof. It is evidence
of the habitable nature of many of our much-abused cottages that in the Thames-side villages a great
proportion are now occupied for several months in the year by people who, though willing to pay for
simple accommodation, will not tolerate dirt, squalor, or want of sanitation. To their surprise they have
found hundreds of cottages, homely, but not uncomfortable, kept with scrupulous neatness, and furnished
by no means badly. Nearly all have ample kitchen accommodation, fair beds, and an equipment of glass,
china, and crockery, which shows how cheap and good are the necessaries of life in England. The
well-to-do agricultural labourer and his wife, whose children are out in the world, the village artisans,
small tradesfolk, and "retired" couples are the owners or occupiers, and now let their rooms at from L1 to
L1 10s. per week, from June till the middle of September. The results are good in every way. Visitors are
pleased at what seems a cheap holiday, and the letters of the rooms save money for the winter, and
realise in a pleasant way that their later years have fallen on good times. It is also an encouragement to
landowners to build good and picturesque cottages. For the first time they see their way to charging a fair
rent on their outlay. The town comes to help the country, and the country sees in the movement a hopeful
future.
NETTING STAGS IN RICHMOND PARK
About the opening of the year I went to see the big stags netted in Richmond Park for transfer to
Windsor. Last season this unique and ancient hunting had to be put off till February. There was too much
"bone" in the ground to make riding safe. When the frost gave, the stags were more than usually cunning,
and were helped by more than their usual share of luck. One fine stag charged the toils at best pace, and,
happening to hit a rotten net, burst through, and went off shaking his antlers as proudly as if he had upset
a rival in a charge. Another took to the lake, and after playing Robinson Crusoe on the island for some
time, swam across to the wood, took a standing leap out of the shallow water on the brink over the
paling, and laid up in Penn Wood.
It was on a lovely mellow January morning, after just a touch of frost, with haze and mist veiling the
distant woods, a winter sun struggling to make itself seen, and all the birds, from the mallards on the
lakes to the jackdaws in the old oaks, beginning to talk, but with their minds not quite made up as to
whether they should take a morning flight or stop where they were, when the business of setting up the
toils began.
This, which is probably managed in exactly the same way as when Queen Dido arranged to give a day's
sport to good Aeneas, is carried out according to the ancient and unvarying tradition of this royal and
ancient park. Nor were we allowed to forget that in this case, too, the stags were being taken by the
servants of a queen. Everything was ready for the transport of the stags to Windsor, and in the foreground
was a good strong wooden cart, painted red and blue, and inscribed in the largest capitals with the words,
"Her Majesty's cart."
The art and practice of taking the stags in the toils is carried out in this wise. A body of mounted men,
under the orders of the superintendent of the park, ride out to find the herds of red deer. They then ride in
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