(^174) an environmenTal hisTory of Wildlife in england
gardens, and especially those lying towards the margins of towns, a greater
range of birds could be found, including linnet, bullfinch, pied wagtail, great
spotted woodpecker and even tawny owl.^70 This reflects the fact that – as
recent studies have shown – birds adapt to gardens most readily in
circumstances where they can also exploit other kinds of habitat.^71 Daglish,
writing in 1928, also described how frogs and toads regularly visited sub-
urban ponds, and how ‘the Crested Newt is also frequently found in gardens,
beneath large stones and old walls’, as was the smooth newt. The slow worm
was, he suggested, now ‘usually found in far great numbers near houses than
in the open country’.^72 In gardens lying on the fringes of town, moreover,
close to the countryside, grass snakes and a variety of lizards could then be
found. Rats and mice were ubiquitous in the suburbs, as they had long been
in the towns, and hedgehogs, moles and shrews soon established themselves
as residents. Foxes were sporadically reported from urban gardens in the
1930s and ‘40s but in such low numbers that they were simply regarded
as remnants of the wild populations living in the surviving fragments of
countryside, especially commons and heaths; or were ‘almost certainly
escapees from captivity’.^73 The age of the urban fox was still to come.
The story is not entirely a positive one, of course. Gardens, as should by
now be clear, were the main portal through which naturalized aliens continued
to arrive in this country, and much damage was done to sphagnum bogs in
the west of England to supply the gardener’s need for peat.^74 But overall, the
spread of gardens in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was
probably good for wildlife, something most graphically illustrated by the
study, admittedly begun in the 1970s, by Jennifer Owen of a small suburban
example in Leicester. Over a 30-year period, she recorded no less than 2,673
species of flora and fauna, including butterflies, moths, beetles, hoverflies,
mammals and birds: including 54 per cent of Britain’s ladybird species,
23 per cent of its bees, 19 per cent of its sawflies, 48 per cent of its harvestmen
and 15 per cent of its centipedes.^75 This was not a garden specially designed
for wildlife: ‘The vegetation tends to be denser and more luxuriant than in
many gardens, but it is nevertheless neat, attractive and productive, and
does not differ markedly from neighbouring gardens’.^76 It is probable that
this range of species would have been less in gardens in the period before
1950 – many had not sufficiently matured to provide shelter enough for
some of Owen’s species, and insecticide use, as noted, was generally at a
higher level. But the differences were probably marginal.
survival of the countryside
Biological diversity in urbanizing areas was also maintained by the survival
of fragments of the old rural landscape. Even today, some areas of farmland –
albeit usually used for grazing ponies – can be found within 15 kilometres
of the centre of London. Half a century or so ago real, working farms could
elle
(Elle)
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