CHAPTER VI. Langley Park-Fish Ponds at Black Park-Flora of the District-Stoke Pogis-Gray's Elegy-Manor House of Stoke-Old Windsor-Ankerwyke-Magna Charta Island-Runnymede-Staines and Egham. IF we again take our way to Slough, and, in place of turning to the west to enjoy the scenery of the Thames, continue our journey in a northerly direction, we shall find as much to interest us as before. Langley Park, Stoke Place, and Stoke Park succeed each other at short intervals, and some of the lanes here are in parts almost obscured by dense overhanging trees that meet in the middle of the road. There is a fine pool of water in Black Park, a quarter of a mile in length, which is surrounded by woods; and at Fulmer, a little farther on, there is a succession of fish-ponds fed by a little stream that runs through Fenton woods and joins the Colne near Uxbridge. All these parts are full of interest for a collector of natural-history specimens ; in the still parts of the pools are microscopic objects not commonly met with in other districts, and the pools themselves abound with pond fish. Here we may meet with the Edible Frog (Rana esculenta), though it is not very abundant. It is easily distinguished from the common frog by its prominent eyes, its triangular head, and its greater bulk. The body is also covered with a warty coat, and it is not so yellow in colour as the common frog. The hind legs are, of course, the parts which are eaten, and when nicely fried in bread-crumbs they are very excellent and delicate. In the woods here we find both the green snake and the viper. The smooth snake, though not so common, is also occasionally met with. It has been mistaken by country people for the adder, but the resemblance is outward only, for it is perfectly harmless. The Lepidoptera are in great abundance and variety here, and indeed it is doubtful if there is a single species of which an example cannot at one time or another be obtained in these parts. But perhaps the greatest charm is in the wild-flowers along the hedgerows. Foxgloves raise their stately heads in vast numbers, and many bushes are covered over with the beautiful flowers of the honeysuckle. The yellow toad-flax, with its yellow flower and orange lining, the bitter sweet, the old-man's-beard, and wild violets, and cowslips, with hosts of others, line the roadsides all along the way from Slough to Stoke Pogis. In the plantations bordering on the road we find many examples of the Early Orchis (Orchis mascula); and I am inbebted to Mr. J. E. Taylor's delightful book on Green Lanes for the following: "The tubers of this species, like the base of the cuckoo-pint, contain such a degree of starchy or farinaceous matter that it was formerly much sought after, boiled in water, and sold at the corners of streets in London and elsewhere under the name of saloop." These tubers have been said to contain more nutritious matter according to their bulk than any other vegetable production, and writers have gone so far as to assert "that one ounce a day was sufficient to sustain a man." In some parts of the hedge we meet with the beautiful delicate little Bluebell, or Harebell, as it is sometimes called; but Campanula rotundifolia hardly expresses its characteristics when the flower is out, for the rotund leaves have all disappeared, and are only noticeable when the plant is springing above the ground. Many are the old tales of soft chimes rung by fairies on the campanulas, and indeed the fairies seem to have been often connected with the wild flowers of our WILD FLOWERS. 119 meadows and hedges. The fungous growths we often hear called "fairy rings" are an apt example, and sometimes these may be seen in great perfection and beauty in the fields here; so that Shakespeare was only giving expression to an everyday belief when he said in A Midsummer Night's Dream "And I serve the fairy Queen To dew her orbs upon the green. In those freckles live their savours." The foxglove, which we see in such beauty in our rambles in Buckinghamshire, is only a perversion of "folks' glove" or fairies' glove. But the flowers that are to be found and that flourish here embrace nearly all that our island can boast of; indeed, it has been the writer's pleasure to see a beautiful and quite extensive greenhouse entirely furnished with plants that could be gathered in the irregular quadrangle which lies between Eton, Burnham, Fulmer, and West Drayton. The projector was an enthusiastic Etonian, who would never allow a foreign plant in this apartment; and he always contended—truly enough, as it seemed that it had more charms than any other exotic greenhouse he might have on his land. At Stoke Pogis we are only a short distance, if we go through Farnham Royal, or the charming but devious roads through East Burnham, from Dropmore Lodge and its neighbouring mansions of Hedsor and Cliveden. "Devious roads" I can say without fear of contradiction, for there is no part of England in which any wayfarer can be so easily lost as the district between Stoke Pogis and the Thames-from, let us say, Hedsor to Taplow. The roads are numerous, but quite erratic and misleading; and as laid down on the Ordnance Map they almost remind one of a very ancient apricotnet that has been patched again and again, and bears but few traces of its former regularity. Gray's Elegy is one of the three poems with which it is hardly too much to say that every one is familiar who is able to read the English language. No iteration can wear off their native beauty, but they remain in their freshness and in their pathos for all time. Perhaps the Elegy is more frequently quoted than Goldsmith's Deserted Village or The Burial of Sir John Moore, even if it cannot be said to excel either of the others in its merits. Strangely enough, Goldsmith never appreciated it, or if he did, it was with a very niggard praise. A |