Sir,—During the recent floods and high tides on the Lower Thames the river rats have had a bad time, as might be expected. I do not know if their discomfort has been shown in a more amusing or striking manner elsewhere that it has on or about Corney Reach.
The crop of osiers on the eyot at Chiswick had just about been cut when the floods came. Only a narrow fringe on the far side of the island was left, and up these the rats had to climb. They sat there looking the picture of misery till the waters subsided with the ebb tide. A single willow rod is a most uncomfortable place to cling to, and the rats looked like ship-wrecked sailors on a mast without the cross-trees. When disturbed by some men in boats they swam across to the Middlesex shore, making a wonderfully good course across the current. Here, however, they found new persecutors in the form of a pair of swans which live in the creek between the island and the shore.
These swans, as soon as they saw a rat, swam after it and bit its back. The rat then dived, and the swan would wait till it rose, swim after it, and drive it under again. Sometimes the swan followed the diving rat under water with its head and neck. One rat which escaped the swans was so nearly drowned that it sat on the corn-shedding panting and exhausted for three minutes.
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The drowning of a fox by a pair of swans in a lake at Rookesbury-park in 1828 was recorded by Mr. Tom Smith. They had cygnets on an island, and the fox was presumably swimming across to reach them. Probably the Thames swans lose cygnets from the attacks of rats and make reprisals.
I am, Sir, yours, &c.,
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C. J. CORNISH
Orford-house, Chiswick-mall