1S2 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Aug. 3, 1867. 



CORNISH. COLLOQUIES. 



/~\UIt early home was in a Cornish valley on the 

 v banks of a tidal river. This valley, hemmed 

 in by wooded heights, in some parts rocky, was 

 periodically flooded. Its sheltered situation, with 

 the combination of wood and water (salt and fresh), 

 cliffs and meadow-land, gave us an opportunity of 

 observing a larger variety of plants and animals 

 than are often seen in one locality. Not only on 

 the rocky-bank side, and under the woods before 

 referred to, but further down the valley, toward 

 the mouth of the stream, where the river sides were 

 muddy or sandy, have we frequently seen the king- 

 fisher darting about or perched on some low 

 stretched-out bough, or other projection. These 

 reaches abounded with tiny fish, crabs, and many 

 kinds of little marine animals ; and many were the 

 sea-birds which frequented them*— cormorants 

 (called " shags " by the Cornish), &c. 



Apropos of " shags," I may remark that when 

 staying near the Lizard, a favourite pleasure to my 

 relatives and myself was to go out with the fisher- 

 men as far as the tide line and see what they call 

 the "trammel nets " drawn, and I once saw a poor 

 drowned "shag," its feet entangled in the meshes 

 of the net, still holding in its beak the fish after 

 which it had dived. 



A pair of Cornish choughs frequented a cliff a 

 long way down the river, and all kinds of gulls 

 seen, with "sea-swallows," even black terns, were 

 plovers, snipes, curlews, woodcocks, sand-pipers, 

 oyster-catchers, and herons. 



We often saw in little solitary glens (for as 

 children we had a strange longing to push our way 

 where as we could imagine, "human feet had never 

 trod"), the curious little water-ouzel or dipper— 

 " water-blackbird " we called him. I cannot but 

 maintain, in spite of judgment to the contrary so 

 vehemently pronounced by many of your corre- 

 spondents, that I have again and again seen the 

 dipper walking on the gravelly bottom of the clear 

 streams before referred to— observed them not 

 only diving and swimming, but, as one of your 

 correspondents remarks, "disappearing under water 

 at one place, and after several seconds had elapsed 

 reappearing at another." My husband tells me he 

 has observed the same habits in water-ouzels on the 

 Teme, in Worcestershire, and in Monmouthshire. 

 Their mossy, leafy nests, and dirty-white eggs were 

 more than once found by us. 



Eour kinds of woodpeckers were seen in our 

 woods— the three pied kinds, and the great green 

 "bird. 



A fir plantation belonging to some friends of ours 



* I believe, since we left the neighbourhood, the whole 

 valley to the river's mouth has been embanked, and part of 

 it brought under cultivation. 



was visited year after year (with intervals for which 

 there seemed no special reason) by large numbers 

 of the beautiful crossbill. 



Great was the excitement produced in three suc- 

 cessive years by the report that a nightingale had 

 been heard in a coppice not far from our house- 

 nightingales being unknown in Cornwall and Devon- 

 shire. Some of us went again and again (I am 

 sorry to say surreptitiously), remaining till long 

 after midnight to listen to the exquisite song ; but 

 those who had heard nightingales sing, pronounced 

 the notes quite unlike that. I do not remember 

 hearing that the sweet songster was ever identified, 

 but it was certainly not a blackcap. 



Salmon abounded in the larger streams, and a 

 most delicious fish called "salmon peel," which I 

 am told, s:'nce I left Cornwall, must have been 

 "grilse," "par," "sewen," (?) last spring's 

 salmon, &c. &c. All I can say is, at times we 

 bought small salmon, and they were as unlike large 

 " salmon peel " of the same size, as trout are unlike 

 both. Unfortunately, "mundic water" from the 

 many mines has now spoilt the beauty and utility 

 of most of the Cornish streams, and "salmon peel" 

 are almost a thing of the past. 



To Mr. Jonathan Couch, of Polperro, I was often 

 promised an introduction by a much - regarded 

 friend, and well-known local naturalist (Mr. 

 Clement Jackson, of Looe, Cornwall), and I wish 

 that my uninformed remarks on the salmon peel 

 may elicit from him, or any other ichthyologist, some 

 information on the subject. 



Referring to Mr. Jackson, I deem it due to his 

 memory to state (what Mr. Couch could probably 

 corroborate) that as early as 1840, and for some 

 years previously, he had made himself acquainted 

 with the principle of the aquarium : how a 

 judicious admixture of plants and animals will keep 

 each other in health, the plants feeding on the car- 

 bonic acid gas, evolved by the animals ; the health of 

 the animals kept up by the oxygen given off by the 

 plants. Mr. Jackson was a chemist in theory and 

 practice, an experimentalist, and a close observer of 

 nature. 



Quite young when I was first privileged with his 

 friendship, my interest and delight in the results of 

 his close and accurate observations were indescrib- 

 able. His little shop was an omnium gatherum and 

 not the least interesting portion of its furniture were 

 the odd-looking tubs, jars, and bottles in which 

 were placed the plants and animals whose natural 

 habits he desired, as far as possible, to observe. I 

 well remember his assertion that the pretty coral- 

 line, found in every pool on the Looe rocks, was a 

 vegetable, and not an animal, and giving proof of 

 the fact. Very retiring, he never paraded his 

 knowledge, and he died some years since, or he 

 might have been induced to make some of his dis- 

 coveries more public. An excellent taxidermist, 



