28 Mr. Henry Walker's Lecher e : 



recreation. The hunting fields around us in Essex, Middle- 

 sex, and Surrey are changed indeed since elephants and 

 aurochs roamed wild along the valley of the Thames ; but 

 the hunting impulse still remains. Huge bisons and huger 

 mammoths are now no longer slain between the eyes with 

 the well-aimed flint- stone, as once they were in more 

 arboreal times ; but we, the hunters of to-day, still track 

 the giant pachyderms and oxen to their home. In old and 

 well-stocked zoological preserves we well know where to 

 find them, and spoil them, like our ancestors, of horns, 

 and tusks, and teeth, as perchance w^e shall to-day. 



Our trysting place, this Saturday of June, has a name 

 that sounds anachronistic in narratives of mammoth 

 hunting in the valley of the Thames. We meet in 

 Bishopsgate. The railway of these late Post-Pliocene 

 times will take us to these well-stocked zoological preserves 

 of which we speak. Ilford, in Essex (only seven miles from 

 the Royal Exchange), is the spot at which we know our 

 game is likely to be found. But who are we, the hunters, 

 who assemble in such force at this rendezvous in Bishops- 

 gate to day? 



A goodly fellowship of London naturalists crowds the 

 railway platform. We meet with veteran geologists as 

 well as amateurs — the fellow- workers once with Buckland, 

 and De la Beche, and Sedgwick — with men 



Who know the birth-rock of each pebble so round, 

 And how far its tour has extended, 



— men who willingly lend themselves to teach and popu- 

 larise their fascinating science. How many Londoners are 

 really addicted to exploring the ancient geography of their 

 favourite City and its environs only appears on a great 

 occasion. The discovery of an old deserted bed of the 

 Thames, with elephant and rhinoceros remains ; the finding 

 of a chipped flint hatchet, used by our rude PalaBolithic fore- 

 fathers ; a new revelation of the Glacial Drift at Einchley ; 

 a fresh "section" in the submerged forest-bed of Plum- 

 stead or Walthamstow — such incidents bring out the eager 

 host, the old and young alike, in all their glory. Here 



