Читать книгу Eleanor Ormerod, LL. D., Economic Entomologist : Autobiography and Correspondence - Eleanor A. Ormerod - Страница 10

Table of Contents

The locality round which most of the recollections of nearly half my life centre is in the district of Gloucestershire, between the Severn and the Wye (opposite Chepstow in Monmouthshire, plate IX.), almost at the extremity of the peninsula, sometimes not inaptly called the “Forest Peninsula,” as some of the “Hundreds” comprised in the more widely extended area stretching on to the Forest of Dean near Newnham, are technically called the “Forest Hundreds,” although what is commonly thought of (at the present day) as the Forest of Dean, has long since ceased to be connected, popularly speaking, with the lower extremity of the peninsula. This is bounded on the two sides by the Severn and the Wye respectively; and at intervals it presents to the Wye considerable frontage of high cliffs of mountain limestone, and to the Severn red marl, capped more or less with lias. It terminates at the junction of the two rivers in a small area, which is an island at high water, but accessibly connected with the mainland at low water. Here, that is on the rocky ground at the point of confluence of the Wye with the Severn, were still existing in my time (that is up to 1873) the few but massive remains of the Hermitage and Chapels, popularly known collectively as the Chapel of St. Tecla or Treacle Island (plate X.). The name as given by William of Worcester in full form is “Capella Sancti Teriaci Anachoretæ.” He describes the locality likewise as “The Rok Seynt Tryacle,” but not having now the opportunity of consulting his observations, I am not able to say whether the ancient chronicler gives any reason for the building of this little but massive knot of buildings, or for its overthrow, which must have been a somewhat laborious task, and from the thickness and the solidly built nature of the walls, one that required co-operation. In the short account given by my father in “Strigulensia” from which I borrow some part of these notes, he says, “It would be vain to attempt identification of the Hermit whose name is associated with the ruins, and who does not appear in the calendar of saints, but he occurs as follows in the “Valor Ecclesiasticus” of Hen. VIII., vol. ii. p. 501,” “Capella Sancti Triaci valet nihil, quâ stat in mare et nulla proficua inde proveniunt.” Whether modern skilled archæologists may have thrown light on the early history of the anchorite and his Severn and seaweed-girt chapel I do not know, but few places could be found less attractive for the archæeological picnic-excursions which have become fashionable of late years. Even to my brothers and myself, accustomed as we were to Severn mud, and to picking our way fairly safely over and amongst the coarse brown slippery seaweed fronds (chiefly, if I remember rightly, the Fucus serratus), the passage over such parts as were not then submerged was an exceedingly muddy progress, needing a deal of care lest we should take a sudden slide into one of the little rock basins concealed by the “kelp” or other coarse brown seaweed. But once arrived, it was very pleasant to sit in the sunshine and enjoy the glorious view down the Estuary of the Severn, the fresh salt air blowing round us, or otherwise employ ourselves to our fancy. From careful measurements we found the length of the chapel to have been 31 feet 6 inches, the width 14 feet 6 inches, and the thickness of the walls, wherever sufficient remained for observation, approximately 3 feet.^[17] We had to be quick in our operations and our return had to be kept in mind, or we should have had to be fetched off in a boat, and under all circumstances it was probably best for the sake of appearances that our walk home should be as far as possible by the fields or under the cliffs where minutiæ as to condition of boots, &c., were unimportant.

The characteristics of the scenery of each of the rivers are wholly different. The Severn above Beachley and Aust (in former days the land-points of the much-used “Old Passage”) spreads into a wide area of water, perhaps about a mile wide at the narrowest, and at high tide forming a noble lake-like expanse. The Wye, on the contrary, as shown in the map (plate IX.), takes its sinuous and narrow course between successive promontories, projecting alternately from the Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire banks.

Ruined Anchorite’s Chapel of St. Tecla, on the Chapel Rock

where Severn and Wye meet.

From a sketch by Miss E.A. Ormerod. (p. 33.)

Severn Cliffs, Sedbury Park.

(p. 40.)

Across some considerable portion of the river a quarter of a mile or so above Beachley, on the Gloucestershire side, a rocky ledge of limestone called “The Lyde” projects at low tide, causing a backwater of which the steady roar can be heard at a long distance.^[18] Cormorants on the rock, and conger-eels below it, were regular inhabitants or visitors—the former presumably attracted by the latter, which served to some degree also as food to the fishermen, although pronounced to be “slobbery-like.”

The muddy colour of the Severn was not in itself picturesque—at least I have never heard the point mentioned with admiration; but to me, born as I was by this noblest of our rivers, it seemed to convey a comfortable idea of homeliness and strength. Sometimes, however, in the early morning or in certain conditions of light, the deep rosy colouring was almost as if the whole width of water had been changed to blood; then the effect was very splendid, and as wonderful still as it must have been in days long gone by to Queen Boadicea:—

“Still rolls thy crimson flood in glory on

As when of old its deep ensanguined dye

Told to the warrior Queen her falling throne,

Her people’s death, the foemen’s victory.”

But, independently of other considerations, a bend in the river was of great local service. It formed a bay of about perhaps three-quarters of a mile across, bounded to the west by our own and the Beachley cliffs, and further protected, or endangered, on the southern side by a low range of rocks running out into the river. With the rising tide the import shipping to Gloucester, which in those days was extensive, put in here to be searched by the Custom House officials. At that time (excepting tugs) it was entirely composed of sailing vessels mostly laden with corn, wine, and timber, and the mixed fleet moving about in the bay with colours flying was a very lively sight. In due time they passed on—the three-masters, ships, and barques, or the graceful chasse-marées, taking the lead; brigs and schooners following, and sloops and—if weather permitted—Severn trows bringing up the rear. These, however, as they differed very little in formation from canal barges, required tolerably fair or at least quiet weather to allow them to proceed in safety. The procession of shipping came along almost beneath our cliffs, the deep channel being on that side, and perhaps it was as well that they were no nearer, or the nautical remarks might have been more often audible to the young people than was desirable!

A special convenience to ourselves was a little creek under the cliffs, called in those parts a “pill” (presumably from the Welsh pwll or pool), which allowed of coals being run in a sloop across from Bristol and carted up to the house by a shorter road than that from Chepstow.

FIG. (A).—PUTCHER FOR CATCHING SALMON.

Salmon fishing was carried on partly by nets from fishing boats, partly by rows of baskets known as “putts” or “putchers.” The boats during the boat fishing lay above the edge of the water on the sloping and slippery frontage of the shore. When the tide served for fishing, the men went down from the village above the cliffs to their boats across the flat and precipitously-edged grass, between the base of the low cliffs and the sloping shore. Each man wriggled with might and main at his boat till he loosened its adhesion to the tenacious mud and started it on its slide with its bows foremost towards the water. Once off, of course the pace accelerated; its owner, running behind, held on and clambered in as best he could, and the two arrived safely and with a great jolt on the water. The boats then formed in line, secured by being tied stern to stern at about a boat’s length from each other, and presumably anchored also, but this I do not remember. The net of each boat was lowered, and nothing further occurred till a fish was captured; then the net was lifted, the fish, shining in all the beauty of its silvery scales, taken out, and the net lowered again. These were the best fish; those that were caught in the putts were “drowned” fish, and unless the fishermen were fairly on the alert to secure them before the falling tide had left the baskets long uncovered, there was a very good chance of the eyes being pecked out or the fish otherwise disfigured by birds.

The putcher or basket fishing was carried on by means of very open extinguisher-shaped baskets each long enough to hold, it can hardly be said accommodate, a good-sized salmon. The frame or stand on which these baskets were fixed was formed of two rows of strong poles or upright pieces of wood, running down the shore, across the narrow of the river, for many yards, firmly fixed between high and low tide level, at such a distance as would allow the baskets to reach from one side to the other. Horizontal poles or pieces of wood connected the upright poles, and to these horizontal supports the baskets were attached, so as to form rows with the open ends of the extinguishers facing up stream and all ranged one storey above the other. The fish were drifted into the basket trap, and of course, though they might injure themselves in their struggles, and to some degree their market value, they were powerless to effect their escape and withdraw backward against the set of the tide.^[19]

The much larger form of basket described by Mr. Buckland as “putts,” and as being used for catching flat fish, was of a slightly different make—formed only of two instead of three pieces; one large piece, so wide at the opening that I, as a girl, had no difficulty in standing within it, and a very much smaller piece, forming a kind of nose. This little adjunct was, I believe, taken off and searched by the fishermen for what it contained. To my sister Georgiana and myself it was a great pleasure to go down to where the two great eel-putts stood on clean shore at very low tide below the longest row of salmon-putchers, and search for anything that was to be found. My sister was a good conchologist. We searched for seaweed, &c., &c., and thereby got a deal of pleasant amusement. The fishermen, who knew us well, made no objection to our investigations, though, as one of the men remarked on one occasion, “It was not everybody they liked to see near the putts.”

In our immediate neighbourhood the fishermen were quiet—at least I never heard of their getting into very objectionable difficulties—but about eight miles higher up the river, near Lydney, things in this respect were by no means all that could be wished. On one occasion they captured the Fishery Inspector himself—whose duty it was to ascertain that the meshes were not below a certain measurement—and secured him in the nets. Another time somebody (who, unluckily for him, bore some resemblance to the obnoxious inspector) got nearly sloughed up in one of the great marsh ditches, and would have been left to live or die as might chance—probably the latter—but for the arrival of timely help. My father being one of the acting magistrates of the district, we used to hear from time to time of these and other “mauvaises plaisanteries” in the neighbourhood of the Forest of Dean.

On reference to the portion of the Ordnance Map (plate IX.) it will be seen that there is a broad band marked “mud,” of about a sixth of a mile in width at the widest part and extending for about a mile and a half by the side of the deep channel of the Severn, between it and the cliffs of the Beachley and Sedbury Bay.

The most remarkable capture of which I have any recollection as taking place in the waters, or rather in the mud of the Severn, was said to be a “Bottle-nosed whale,” or Dolphin, Delphinus tursio, Fabr., but it was so many decades of years ago, that I have no means now of turning to any record for verification of the species. The capture itself excited a deal of local interest. It was on a summer morning that one of my brothers, enlivening his vacation studies, as was his custom, by watching through his telescope anything of interest that might be going on amongst the shipping or elsewhere, saw something like an enormous fish struggling and “flopping” on the Beachley pier of the old Passage Ferry. As a matter of course, we young folks set off after luncheon to have our share of the sight, and found the creature had been captured when lying helpless, or half dead, in the mud at the Aust side of the Ferry, and had been towed across behind a boat. At this distance of time I only remember the whale- or dolphin-like shape of the animal, its great size, and that it was apparently of a greyish colour; but this item might very likely be from its being coated with Severn mud. In Bell’s “British Quadrupeds” the greatest length recorded of various specimens found in England is 12 feet. The colour of the back is black, with a purplish tinge, becoming dusky on the sides, and dirty white on the belly. This species is considered rare in England and it is of some interest, in referring to the locality of what may be called our own capture, that “The first account which we have of its appearance on our own shores is that of John Hunter,” and it was taken with its young one “on the sea coast near Berkeley”; that is about two or three miles higher up the left bank of the Severn than the Aust Cliffs. Another specimen was found in the river Dart in Devonshire, and, it was stated, “was killed with difficulty, the poor animal having suffered for four hours the attacks of eight men armed with spears and two guns, and assisted by dogs. When wounded it made a noise like the bellowing of a bull.”^[20] In the case of the Old Passage specimen the poor creature was also most barbarously treated, chiefly by being attacked by the running of hay forks, pitch forks, and the like, into its body, and I remember a good deal of chopping with hatchets or axes, but it was quite quiet and, it was to be hoped, was past feeling pain. Immense popular interest, of course, was excited as to the precise nature of the unusual “take,” as to whether it was a Leviathan, or possibly the kind of fish that swallowed Jonah—but the affair ended by the creature being shipped off to Bristol to be turned into a little money for the boatmen who secured it, and no other cetacean was taken during the remainder of the years in which Sedbury was my home.

The most observable of the seaweeds, which grew on the rocks or large stones, more or less in the muddy salt water between tide levels at the mouth of the Severn, were of the genus Fucus, which at one time was much used in the making of kelp. The ornamental kinds always appeared to me to be unaccountably absent. They were not to be expected to make this place their habitat, but, still, their almost total absence in the masses of drift matter left by the retiring tide struck me as curious. In my most successful searches I do not remember ever being fortunate enough to secure even a fragment of the lovely Oak-leaf, Delesseria, with its bright, rosy-veined leaves from as much as 4 inches to 8 inches in length placed along their cylindrical stem, or the Peacock seaweed, Padina pavonea, with its concentric markings. Of Iceland Moss there might be a battered morsel. The general composition of the driftage was composed of little except what might be grown in the neighbourhood, mixed with sugar cane or packing material thrown from the vessels. This, however, seemed to me of some interest in connection with the set of the currents. Here, however, I am out of my element, but as my brother Dr. Ormerod employed me as a collector, I am not personally responsible.

The distinct varieties of soil, and also the geographical and the geological surroundings of Sedbury, were unusually favourable to natural history investigations, whether of fauna and flora of the present day, or of fossil remains of saurians and shells. These were easily accessible as they fell from the frontage of lias, or the narrow horizontal strip in the cliffs (plate IX.) facing the Severn, well known to the geologists as the “bone bed.” At the highest part the cliffs were about 140 feet, calculating from medium tide level. There the face had been quarried back for a supply of lias limestone, used in enlarging the offices of the house, and in so doing had laid bare a fine bed of so-called “Venus” shells. We used to find beautiful specimens of those shells, irrespective of this extra fine deposit, and also of “patens,” oysters of some kind, which we sought for unweariedly, hammer in hand. The greatest matters of interest, however, were the saurian, or the fish remains, of which we sometimes found a plentiful supply of specimens of little value, and now and then some of considerable interest.

PLATE XI.

Roman Pottery, found in Sedbury Park.

From a drawing by Miss E. A. Ormerod. (p. 18.)

Saurian from the Lias, Sedbury Cliffs.

(p. 41.)

The Sedbury cliffs lie nearly north of the Aust cliff, and contain the Aust bone bed, from which the Severn, about a mile wide, or somewhat more, there divides them. Geologically, in all important characteristics, I believe the two cliffs correspond. Of this bone bed it is noted by Sir Charles Lyell^[21]: “In England the Lias is succeeded by conformable strata of red and green marl or clay. There intervenes, however, both in the neighbourhood of Exmouth, in Devonshire, and in the cliffs of Westbury and Aust, in Gloucestershire, on the banks of the Severn, a dark-coloured stratum, well known by the name of the ‘bone bed.’ It abounds in the remains of saurians and fish, and was formerly classed as the lowest bed of Lias; but Sir P. Egerton has shown that it should be referred to as the Upper New Red Sandstone.” The reasons given are not of interest to the general reader. From the fallen débris of this we collected vertebræ, single, or sometimes a few in connection, also bones of the paddles, and any amount of teeth, also coprolites, the excrementitious matter of the living owners of the bones. These were in great quantity, but I never remember that they were other than irregular lumps, and though some of us were much given to grinding and polishing stones that afforded hope of an ornamental result, it never occurred to us to exercise our talents on these lumps, which might have indicated in their undigested contents some evidence of the diet of their consumers.

The only valuable or interesting specimen of Saurian remains (that is of an animal in moderate degree of entirety) fell from the cliffs after I had ceased to reside there. This was a slab of Lias about 3 feet long by 2 feet broad, and about 7 to 9 inches thick (plate XI.) The history of its fall, as given to me in a letter from Dr. John Yeats, F.R.G.S., then residing at Chepstow, dated September, 1882, was, that “From one of the ledges, or from the top of a slip or subsidence, a fir tree was blown down during the autumn of 1882.... The fossil was found beneath the roots,” and “the fossil remains were laid bare by a conchoidal fracture.” A few detached vertebræ were collected, but unfortunately no part of the head was secured. Of this specimen Professor Richard Owen was good enough to report to Dr. Yeats on the 24th of May, 1883, as follows: “From the concavity of the articular surfaces of the vertebræ, I infer it to be part of an ichthyosaurus, and the number and character of the ribs agree with that deduction. If any part of the jaws or teeth should be found near the locality it would decide the matter.”

This fossil is now in the possession of Sir William H. Marling, at Sedbury.

The surface of the cliffs was of a very mixed nature, with ledges of stone projecting slightly in places, and from the effect of weathering, landslips, leading at times to inconvenience, were not infrequent. As we knew the nature of the ground we were careful about going near the edge of the top of the cliff, where a precipice or a crack showed danger, but it happened more than once that a bullock or calf, attracted by food to be found amongst the trees or bushes which in some places clothed the slanting upper part, was tempted beyond safe footing, and toppled down to the bottom to its own destruction. On one occasion, on returning from a walk, my sister Georgiana and I, not having noticed a fall from the cliffs, were cut off by one of these slips from any comfortable advance. It was not a case of danger, but a choice between much wet and dirt from Severn mud, or very considerable discomfort of another sort, as the slip had brought down with it brambles, &c., &c., most unpleasant to brave for the sake of dryness. We preferred the wet passage, feeling our way with our feet through the muddy water from one good-sized stone to another, and presently arrived safely above the high-tide level, but to those who did not know that beneath the muddy surface there was a sound footing if sought for, the little episode might have been unpleasant.

PLATE XII.

Royal Mail starting from Old General Post Office, London.

Original lent by Arthur Ackermann & Son, 191, Regent Street, W.