Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood Part 35

{62b} I take haphazard two or three entries from my shooting diary, recording the produce of a morning's walk, alone, on the moor, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. "Oct. 4, 1874.-9 hares, 8 pheasants, 3 brace of partridges, 2 couple of rabbits, 3 woodpigeons, 2 waterhens." "Oct.

1877.-10 hares, 7 pheasants, 4 brace of partridges, 2 woodc.o.c.k, 2 couple of rabbits." "Jan. 29, 1878.-5 pheasants, 4 hares, 2 brace of partridges, 2 couple of rabbits, 3 woodc.o.c.k, 2 woodpigeon, 1 waterhen, 2 snipe."

{63} The bag that day (Nov. 1877) was 352 hares, 14 pheasants, 8 partridges, 4 rabbits. I also find the following brief entry: "Nov. 7, 1878-Shot with a party in Kirkstead, killing to my own gun nearly 60 hares." And again, "Oct. 19, 1876. Shot with a friend in Kirkstead, 15 brace of partridges, 6 brace of pheasants, and 10 hares." To show that the Kirkstead and Tattershall shootings still maintain their excellence, I give here the bag on a more recent occasion. "Oct. 12, 1894.-In Kirkstead a party shot, in the open, 70 brace of partridges, 1 pheasant, and 110 hares." At Tattershall in the same year a party killed 531 hares in three days. I have mentioned above, the Tattershall shooting as being "nearly as good as that of Kirkstead." I give here a note or two of sport on that estate: "Sep. 21, 1876.-Shot with Mr. S. (the lessee of the shooting) the Witham side of Tattershall. Bag: 25 hares, 9 brace of partridges." "Sep. 25.-Shot on the same ground, 7 hares, 26 brace of partridges." On the Woodhall ground, hares were always few in number, the soil not seeming to suit them; but among partridges I have shared in good sport. I give two entries as samples: "Sep. 16, 1873.-Shot with Captain H. (lessee of the shooting) 30 brace of partridges and 2 hares."

And again, "Nov. 16, 1872.-Shot for the third day, Bracken Wood. Total bag, rather more than 400 pheasants in the three days; rabbits, over 150, and 20 woodc.o.c.k."

{65} Other instances of albinos are not uncommon, but more among birds than quadrupeds. I find among my notes the following: "Albino shrew mouse caught at Ackworth, near Pontefract, June, 1895; white robin at Whitby, Jan., 1896; ditto at Boston, Sept., 1898; white woodc.o.c.k nested in Manby Woods, near Louth, with four young of the usual colour, July, 1892; buff woodc.o.c.k shot at Bestwood, Nottingham, Feb. 1892; white landrail shot at Kedleston, near Derby, Sept., 1892; white thrush caught at Nidderdale, November 1892; cream-coloured skylark shot near Harrogate, Sept., 1891; white jay-two young specimens shot near York, 1893; white sand martin caught at Killinghall, near Harrogate, July, 1898; at Brackenborough, near Louth, there were two coveys of partridges, in the season of 18967, with white specimens among them: and at Stonehouse, in Gloucesters.h.i.+re, a covey of mixed white and brown partridges were reported in 1897. A buff hare was shot near Bourne in 1897." A white black-buck was killed by a friend in Kattiawar, India, in 1897, and I have a stuffed specimen of buff blackbird, caught some years ago in the vicarage garden at Woodhall: the parent birds having buff young two seasons in succession.

{67} In the Southdowns, the hills are called "Downs," and the valleys "Deans," or sometimes by the Devons.h.i.+re term "Coomb."

{69} Essays on Natural History, Third Series, p. 169. Ed. 1857.

{71a} Gilbert White mentions this habit of "snakes stinking, _se defendendo_. A friend (he says) kept a tame snake, in its own person as sweet as any animal; but as soon as a stranger, a cat, or a dog entered the room, it fell to hissing, and filled the room with such nauseous effluvia as rendered it hardly supportable." Natural History, Selbourne, p. 90. Ed. 1829.

{71b} Brusher, a well-known character in the New Forest, Hamps.h.i.+re, says he has seen hundreds of snakes swallow their young in time of danger.

"The New Forest," by R. C. de Crespigny and Horace Hutchinson.

{74} Several kinds of fish which we now think coa.r.s.e or insipid, would doubtless become, through the culinary skill of the monastic _chef_ "savoury dishes" such as even a lordly abbot's soul might relish. For the benefit of readers who may like to try the fish of our district under most favourable conditions, I here give two or three recipes for cooking them. Francatelli, no mean authority, says, "a pike cooked properly can hold its own against many fish from the sea." Boiled with horseradish sauce and mustard it makes an excellent dish. Perch, with sorrel sauce and mayonnaise, is equally good. Carp, fried with b.u.t.ter, is excellent.

Chub, taken in frosty weather, are firm, at other times rather flabby, but treated in either of the above ways they are more than palatable.

Roach, cooked on a gridiron, with b.u.t.ter, make a nice breakfast. Tench, with port wine sauce, are a luxury. Eels, though despised in Scotland, are very good stewed.

{76a} Lincoln Records, quoted in Sir Charles Anderson's "Pocket Guide of Lincoln," p. 107. The spelling "wesh" agrees with the local p.r.o.nunciation of the present day.

{76b} Mr. S. Cheer, of Horncastle.

{76c} Mr. W. Bryant, of Horncastle.

{78} Rev. C. D. Ash, Skipwith Vicarage. Naturalist, 1896, pp. 302 and 303.

{79a} Mr. J. Watson, in his very interesting book, "Sylvan Folk," states (p. 232) that a single swan will destroy a gallon of trout ova in a day.

{79b} Mr. W. Bryant.

{79c} Aaron Rushton.

{80a} This fine specimen of the _salmo fario_ was bought by the late Rev. J. W. King, of sporting celebrity, to put into the lake at Ashby-de-la-Launde, to improve the breed of trout there.

{80b} In one part of "The Brook," the Laureate has taken a "poetic licence," when he says:

"I wind about, and in and out, With here a blossom sailing.

And here and there a l.u.s.ty trout, And here and there a grayling."

There are no grayling in the Somersby beck.

{81} For brothers "of the cloth" with piscatorial proclivities, who visit Woodhall, the writer would point to this means of healthful relaxation, which he can recommend from experience. Any qualms of the clerical conscience as to the legitimacy of such an avocation-a wholesome calling away from graver duties-may be set at rest on episcopal, and even archi-episcopal, authority. The late Archbishop Magee was an ardent fisherman, and would go on flogging on Irish lough or river, even though he did not get a single rise. (See "Life of W. Connor Magee," by J. C.

McDonnell.) And the writer once read, with much enjoyment, an article on salmon fis.h.i.+ng in the "Quarterly Review," which was attributed to the versatile pen of the Bishop of Winchester, better known as "Samuel of Oxford," who sought occasional relief from his almost superhuman labours on the banks of a Highland river.

{84a} The exception to which allusion is here made is the village of South Scarle, about six miles from Lincoln, where a deep boring was made in 1876, in search of coal. The depth attained was 2,029 feet, or nearly twice that of the Woodhall well; but as only the upper layer of the coal measures was thus reached, and it was calculated that actual coal would be some 1,600 feet lower still, or a total depth of 3,600 feet, the boring was abandoned. The strata pa.s.sed through were found to be as follows: Alluvial or drift, 10ft.; lower lias clay and limestone, 65ft.

rhtic beds, 66ft.; the three tria.s.sic formations, new red marl (Keuper), lower keuper sandstone, new red sandstone, 1,359ft.; upper permian marls, upper magnesian limestone, middle permian marls, lower magnesian limestone, permian marl slates, with bas.e.m.e.nt of breccia, 619ft.; and upper coal measures, 10ft.; total, 2,029ft.

{84b} See end of Chapter I. on The History of the Well.

{85a} We have the testimony of two of the labourers employed in the shaft (Cheeseman and Belton) who agree in giving this depth. They also state that the particular stratum was 54ft. thick; that the set of the current was from south-east to north-west, running from a crack in one side of the shaft into a corresponding crack in the opposite side, and that they both a.s.sisted in making a brick and cement lining to the shaft, leaving a channel behind for the water to run round half the circ.u.mference, from crack to crack.

{85b} We may further add that it is at the junction of the Northampton sand with the underlying lias, that we find numerous springs in other parts of the county; as at Navanby, Waddington, Lincoln, Blyborough, Kirton, and several other places. The Government "Geological Survey Memoir" for the country around Lincoln (p. 208) agrees in saying that the Woodhall water comes from the "inferior oolite" which comprises the Northampton sands.

{87a} "Life of Nansen, 18811893," by W. C. Brogger and Nordahl Rolfsen.

(Longmans, 1896, pp. 350357).

{87b} Ibidem, p. 139.

{88a} Ibidem, p. 123.

{88b} This subject has been fully gone into by Mr. P. F. Kendall, F.G.S., in his article "The Cause of an Ice-age," contributed to the "Transactions of the Leeds Geological a.s.sociation," part viii. Other ice-streams also pa.s.sed down various alleys from Teesdale to Airedale, and the Ouse.

{88c} See an article "On the Occurrence of Shap Granite Boulders in Lincolns.h.i.+re," by Mr. W. T. Sheppard, in the "Naturalist" of 1896, pp.

333339. Also the "Presidential Address to the Yorks.h.i.+re Naturalists'

Union," by J. Cordeaux, F.R.G.S., M.B.O.U., in the "Naturalist" for 1897, pp. 195, 6. See also a very interesting article in the "Fortnightly Review," November, 1863, on "The Ice-age and its Work," by A. R. Wallace, F.R.S.

{89a} Mr. J. Cordeaux gives this thickness in the "Naturalist" (1897, p.

186). Professor J. Geikie says it "did not exceed 3,500ft. or 4,000ft.

at most, and would take 3,000ft. as an average." ("The Glacial Period and Earth Movement," a paper read before the Victoria Inst.i.tute in 1893.

Trans. No. 104, pp. 221249, where also the question is largely considered of the causes of the Ice-age).

{89b} Mr. Wallace says; "Every mountain group, north of the Bristol channel, was a centre from which, in the Ice-age, glaciers radiated; these became confluent, extensive ice-sheets, which overflowed into the Atlantic on the west, and spread far over the English lowlands on the east and south." "The Ice-age and its work."-"Fortnightly Review," Nov., 1893, p., 269.

{90} Quoted by Mr. Wallace in "The Fortnightly," p. 630.

{91a} Quoted from "Glacialist's Magazine," "Fortnightly Review," Nov., 1893, p. 631.

{91b} A list of Scandinavian boulders, which have been found in Lincolns.h.i.+re is given by Mr. T. Sheppard, in the "Glacialists' Magazine,"

vol. iii, 1895, p. 129. Notices of lakeland boulders are given in the "Naturalist" of 1897, pp. 67, 103104, 1956, 2834; and of 1898, pp.

1720,8587, 133138, 221224. In the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society for May, 1885, Mr. Jukes Brown gives the general range of the boulder clay in Lincolns.h.i.+re, while its range of flanking rocks in our own more immediate neighbourhood is treated of in the Government Geological Survey of "Lincoln and the Country around," pp. 2, 122129, 155, 156.

{91c} The average rate of a glacier has been computed at 64 inches for the four summer months; in other cases one inch a day. The progress, of course, varies with the slope or smoothness of its bed, and is more rapid in the centre than at the sides, where it sc.r.a.pes against flanking rocks.

{92} Sydney B. J. Skertchly, F.G.S., joint author of a valuable work, ent.i.tled "The Fenland, Past and present."

{93a} Geological Survey, p. 79.

{93b} At Bardney, Baumber, Horncastle, West Ashby, and Fulletby, &c.

Geological Survey, 7981.

{93c} These beds of inflammable shale are also found on the coast of Dorset, and are worked by levels driven into the cliff. This clay indeed receives its name Kimeridge, from a Dorset village, on the coast, near Corfe Castle and Poole.

{94a} Mr. Jeans, in "Murrey's Handbook of Lincolns.h.i.+re," [p. 6] puts the total thickness of the various cretaceous formations at "about 1,000ft."

{94b} Geological Survey, pp. 207209.

{95a} Ibedem.