NATURE-STUDY IN BATTERSEA.
WHEN Battersea was Patricesey, the island of Patric or Peter, doubtless it was visited by as many birds and beasts as any other island of the tidal Thames. To-day it is no longer an island, and the marshes which were round it have been drained for London streets ; but it is still the refuge of what remains of wild life in a district where bricks and mortar stretch for miles, and it remains the happy hunting- ground of many Londoner naturalists unable to travel further out into the country. One of its neighbours, himself a field- worker and archaeologist, Mr. Walter Johnson, has set himself the task of describing for others the wild life of the neighbour- hood, and his little book, " Battersea Park as a Centre for Nature-Study" (T. Fisher Unwin, ls. net), has been adopted as a text-book by the Battersea and Wandsworth Educational Council. It is a suggestive and stimulating little book, and nothing, perhaps, is more interesting than its scope. The Nature that is to be studied begins absolutely at the beginning, and the student is taken patiently through a course of birds, mammals, fishes, and insects, down to the fungus which attacks house-flies. Here and there the purview may be limited—there are only four kinds of fish mentioned, for instance—but that is not so remarkable as the determination to find interest and attraction in the least promising byways and corners.
The bird life of the Park is taken first, as the most generally attractive; and if the instruction offered is a little elementary, it might be amusing to test a country- dweller, to whom the sights and sounds described are matters of everyday experience, in the knowledge which is only to be obtained by careful and painstaking observation by the 'Londoner. The Battersea child learning to distinguish birds is set first to learn the notes of the thrush, blackbird, and robin. Well, is it every one who lives all the year in the country who can tell them apart ? It is not a bad beginning to have mastered the three, for it presupposes an ability to distinguish many more,—an ability which seems to be denied to some people as completely as the power to distinguish one tune from another on the piano. But if the Battersea child is rightly introduced first to the three easiest and commonest singers, it is surely a mistake to add that there is no need to describe "the points wherein the song-thrush differs from its larger and less common kinsman, the missel-thrush." We should have said that there was every need. To begin with, nobody can claim that he can always tell the song of the thrush or the blackbird if he does not know the wilder, stormier singing of the missel-thrush. But the missel-thrush in Battersea Park a little puzzles us. In the natural history calendar given at the end of the book the missel-thrush and thrush are noted as singing in fog in November. That looks as if the missel-thrush should be singing in the other winter months ; but it is not noted as doing so, and is set down as "nesting in June," which is certainly rather late for a missel- thrush. But to continue the list. After the first three birds, the Battersea child is set to listen for the great-tit, who is nicknamed "saw-sharpener" to help him pick out the note ; and after the great-tit come the blue-tit. chiffchaff, hedge- sparrow, spotted flycatcher, swallow, martin, and swift. Besides these and other inland and water birds, all fully and faithfully described, there are the gulls, of which more reach the Thames and journey further up-stream every succeeding winter.
The birds are the beginning, and the concluding stages of the road down which the Battersea child is beckoned are a series of close descriptions of the flowers, shrubs, and trees growing in the Park. But it is the chance, stray dates and memoranda scattered throughout this record of scanty oppor- tunity and painstaking observation which strike the real keynote of the story of outdoor life in Battersea. " Among the choicer records, here alluded to in order to encourage other observers, the following," we read, "are abstracted from the writer's note-books. A magpie on Wandsworth Common (January, 1909); sand-martins for many years in succession at Clapham Junction; willow-wrens singing every summer on Wands- worth Common; stone-chats at the same spot ; and a wander- ing kestrel at Clapham Common. Some years ago the eggs of the water wagtail were found behind a tombstone in the old graveyard of St. Mary's Church Broken sparrows' eggs are common, and scraps of egg-shells belonging to the thrush and the starling are also to be picked up." Observa- tions of insects are equally careful and equally tenacious of the smallest hint of wild life beyond. The common grass- hopper is noted as "seen on a few occasions in grounds near Bolingbroke Road, usually after gentle winds." The water boatman is a casual visitor. "An aquatic insect, which swims with its back downwards, using its two hind legs as oars. In October, 1906, after a rainy night, a pool of water, two or three yards square, in Bolingbroke Road play- ground, contained half a dozen of these insects. They had, perhaps, flown over from the Queen's Mere at Wimbledon Common, for a strong south-west wind had accompanied the heavy rain." Another flying visitor is the humming- bird hawkmoth, "a rare record for Battersea. One of these insects flew into a classroom at Bolingbroke Road (1899) and alighted on a boy's copy-book." Then there are visitors who are present, but only visible to the exceptionally fortunate. " The leaf-cutter bee may, by rare luck, be found at work, but generally one must be content to see, on the leaves of plants, the round holes and scalloped edges which it has cut." Luck, too, may follow the searcher for slugs. " By good fortune, we may catch sight of a slug eating an earthworm Apt pupils will begin to reconnoitre for other objects of interest. Acorn barnacles may be found near the wharves." The dullest afternoon may bring reward to a genuine searcher. "In autumn it is well to keep watch for dead flies glued, by a white, powdery substance, to walls and ceilings. Such flies have been attacked by a minute fungus (Enipusa), the spores of which, when ripe, are dispersed, and attack healthy flies." "The familiar Winter gnat belongs to the same family as the daddy-long-legs (Tipulidae). When the weather is mild these gnats dance under the shelter of hedges and walls; when severe conditions set in, they bide under leaves, and in corners of buildings." Beetles are sought for
with the same enthusiasm. "Aphodius fimetarius—apparently has no popular name. Frequents heaps of manure on dusty roads. Red wing covers, and rusty clubbed antennae. One specimen, Bolingbroke Road. Bark beetle. The larva of this beetle makes the curious grooved patterns, somewhat
resembling in form the skeleton of a plaice or sole The last good example seen by the writer of a bole engraved by Scolytus was on Clapham Common ; or, to be quite correct, on a clothes-prop bought at the door from a street hawker." But the stranger who puzzled everybody was an eel. " Once a workman had occasion to raise a grating by the side of the street in Battersea Square, in order to remove an obstruction. He found a large eel in the drain. No one knew how it came there. Circumstances were against its escape from a fish- monger's shop—there was none in the immediate locality. Perhaps it entered the drain as a young elver, and remained there; or it may have got into the drain at the outfall."
A student who makes so much of so little material for observation in the way of bird and animal life might be expected to do his duty in the way of botanical research, and so he does. Every tree, almost every flower and leaf, in the Park is an acquaintance or a friend, and, we gather, the acquaintanceship is shared by pupils. It is really a rather remarkable achievement. The wish arises that something more could be done to enlarge the opportunities of watching and hearing birds and animals wild in open London play- grounds such as Battersea Park. The planting of specimen trees and plants is managed easily enough ; but the animal life is more difficult. Butterflies have been introduced, but the sparrows ended that experiment. " Hooligan " boys spoil other chances. Several times, we read, wood-pigeons have built in the top of a black poplar in the playground of Bolingbroke Road School, but they have never brought off their young. A high wind or a boy climbing at night has destroyed the nest each year. Imagine climbing a black poplar by night merely to take a pigeon's nest ! Could any hopes of hatched eggs be more wantonly destroyed—or more boldly P The success of the " hooligan" robbing pigeons' nests in poplars disposes of the idea that something might be done in places like Battersea Park with artificial nesting-boxes. They would be too conspicuous; the "hooligan" would escape the most vigilant park-keeper. But the worst enemies of nesting birds, doubtless, in a London park are not boys. You can at least fence out boys at night. But Nature-study in Battersea has not yet discovered a fence proof against the leanest and hungriest of cats. Large tortoiseshell butterflies are rare in Battersea Nature notebooks, but large tortoiseshell cats are quite common.
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