FLOOD LANDS AND WATER SUPPLY. 95 



from the swamp to the ditch, or has been 

 licked up in evaporation. 



For a long period the gradual drainage of 

 this country must have added millions to the 

 natural wealth. Roman England sounds like 

 a series of high pitched camps and military 

 roads dominating a country of wooded morasses. 

 From even earlier traces than this London 

 appears as a pile village not unlike those of 

 Malaya or New Guinea. No doubt the rivers 

 needed curbing and taming all through the bad 

 old days, even the bad old coaching days, but 

 we do not want to improve them altogether off 

 the face of the country. Many small streams 

 have suffered this fate, their names serving as 

 grave stones in certain districts. The old 

 anglers who caught trout in the West-bourne, 

 or the Tye-bourne (Tyburn) would lose their 

 bearings to-day if set down on the spot of their 

 old pastime; just as we shall a generation hence 

 when revisiting places where we netted minnows, 

 or caught small trout on a worm, as boys. 



Overwhelming evidence as to the conversion 

 of swamp or flood land into grass or building 

 sites can be gathered from the most cursory 

 study of bird life in England during the last 

 hundred years. The bittern has been treated 

 like the Tasmanian until he is nearly or quite 

 extinct in most places outside the Fen country. 

 Bewick, and the early editions of Yarrell, tell 

 a different tale from Seebohm as to the range 

 and number of the grallatores or wading birds. 

 No one can look through the inimitable wood- 



