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C. J. Cornish - The Naturalist on the Thames
the bank. Constantly refreshed by the adjacent water, they flower and seed, seed and flower, and are
haunted by bees and butterflies till the November frosts. The most decorative of all are the spikes of
purple loose-strife. In autumn when most of the flowers are dead the tip of the leaf at the heads of the
spikes turns as crimson as a flower. The other red flowers are the valerian, in masses of squashed
strawberry, and the fig-wort, tall, square-stemmed, and set with small carmine knots of flower. In autumn
these become brown seed crockets, and are most decorative. The fourth tall flower is the flea-bane, and
the fifth the great willow-herb. The lesser plants are the small willow-herbs, whose late blossoms are
almost carmine, the water-mints, with mauve-grey flowers, and the comfrey, both purple and white. The
dewberry, a blue-coloured more luscious bramble fruit, and tiny wild roses, grow on the marl-face also.
At its foot are the two most beautiful flowers, though not the most effective, the small yellow
snapdragon, or toad-flax, and the forget-me-not. This blue of the forget-me-nots is as peculiar as it is
beautiful. It is not a common blue by any means, any more than the azure of the chalk-blue butterflies is
common among other insects. Colour is a very constant feature in certain groups of flowers. One of these
includes the forget-me-nots, the borage, the alkanet, and the viper's bugloss, which keep up this blue as a
family heirloom. Others of the tribe, like the comfrey, have it not, but those which possess it keep it pure.
The willows at this time are ready to shed their leaves at the slightest touch of frost. Yet these leaves are
covered with the warts made by the saw-flies to deposit their eggs in. The male saw-fly of this species
and some others is scarcely ever seen, though the female is so common. The creature stings the
leaf, dropping into the wound a portion of formic acid, and then lays its egg. The stung leaf swells, and
makes the protecting gall. It is difficult to say when "fly," in the fisherman's use of the term as the adult
insect food of fish, may not appear on the water. Moths are out on snowy nights, as every collector
knows, and on any mild winter day flies and gnats are seen by streams. In the warm, sunny days of late
September, numbers of some species of ephemerae were seen on the sedges and willows, with black
bodies and gauzy wings, which the dace and bleak were swallowing eagerly, in quite summer fashion.
The water is now unusually clear, and as the fish come to sun themselves in the shallows every shoal can
be seen.
Among the typical Thames-valley flowers, all of which would be the better for protection, are the very
rare soldier orchis (Orchis Militaris) and the monkey orchis (Orchis Simia), the
water-snowflake, the hottonia, or water-violet, the water-villarsia, more elegant even than the
water-lilies, the flowering rush, with a crown of bright rose-pink flowers. The two orchids named are
very interesting plants. Of the monkey orchis Mr. Claridge Druce says in his "Flora of Oxfordshire" that
it has become exceedingly scarce, not so much from the depredations of collectors, but from the fondness
of rabbits for it and the changes brought about by agriculture. The soldier orchis is very rare indeed; both
are only found in a few woods in the Thames valley, and possibly in Kent. The bladderworts fade
instantly, and are not much interfered with, and though the fritillaries are picked for market, the roots are
not dug up because that would injure the meadow turf in which they grow, and business objections would
be raised.
INSECTS OF THE THAMES
Except among the select few, generally either enthusiastic boys or London mechanics of an inquiring
mind, who keep fresh-water aquariums and replenish them from ponds and brooks at "weekends," few
persons outside the fancy either see or know much of the water insects,[1] or are aware, when floating on
a summer day under the willows in a Thames backwater, of the near presence of thousands of aquatic
creatures, swift, carnivorous, and pursuing, or feeding greedily on the plants in the water garden that
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