Today I found a nest of wool and leaves containing six baby mice; they fell out of a box when I was emptying out my shed. If I were a dog or cat I would have eaten them straightaway. If I were the mouse-mother I would carefully have gathered them up and stashed them somewhere safe. Being myself, I studied them for a while; I felt pity for them; I found them attractive in a soft, velvety way; I dealt with them with a stick because I do not want more mice wrecking my storage boxes.
This episode has prompted some clear thinking about morality. What follows is an attempt to consider this subject in a fresh way, taking inspiration from Husserl's concept of intersubjectivity and Lifeworld, Bateson's systems theory, Von Uexkull's Umwelt theory and Schopenhauer's philosophy of will.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) All human actions have moral value because they are enacted in a transpersonal (transsubjective) dimension. All actions impact on the world, including the lifeworlds of other beings.There is no such thing as a purely private action.
2) Whether the actions are considered to be morally 'good' or 'bad' depends on the outcome, not the motive. Motive is determined by personal character, which is a given. Morality is thus about outcomes and not motives.
3) The driver of all action is the organic Will to Life of the individual. The expression or enaction of this Will is determined by the participation of this individual in their transpersonal (social / ecological) context, which supplies information feedback. Other individuals (human or non-human) are maximising the expression of their respective Wills, either competing with or collaborating with their neighbours. The result is contested or participatory trophic action-space, with feedback loops tending to facilitate or to limit/sanction behavioural expression.
4) Moral value (meaning) is assigned by participants to incidental actions producing outcomes in their lifeworlds. All actions are interpreted by and signify to some person or some living thing; they have causal impact on lifeworlds.
5) All outcomes are in-themselves morally 'good' as well as 'bad'. Absolute good or bad is an idea, but nothing more. Assignment of moral value (i.e. place on the moral spectrum) relates to the context in which the outcome happens. Context is an open, layered system. A morally 'good' outcome at one systemic level may have a morally 'bad' outcome at another level or on the same level. Moral value is assigned to the outcome by fellow participants in the transpersonal dimension. The individual is not in a position to say whether their actions are morally 'good' or 'bad' except through a) direct feedback from contextual participants, or b) introjected feedback.
6) We pay attention to the various implications of our actions (ends as well as means) on as many levels as possible. That is morality in action. We provide feedback about the outcomes of the actions of others as they impact on our lifeworld. That is also morality in action.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My introjected feedback tells me I lack compassion. I suppose my fellow humans might tell me the same. The mouse-mother is not in a position to give me feedback about her reaction. Tonight a scavenging animal will probably find their bodies in the hedge where I chucked them; it will make them its own. A morally 'bad' outcome may have a morally 'good' outcome. This is the dance of creation and destruction, destruction and creation...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some interesting reading
* Simpson, B, Willer, R, and Harrell, A, 2017: The Enforcement of Moral Boundaries Promotes Cooperation and Prosocial Behavior in Groups; Nature Scientific Reparts 7, Online Article 42844.
Saturday, 27 August 2016
Sunday, 10 July 2016
The South Hams
Unless you see it for yourself, it is hard to appreciate the level way the hill tops of the South Hams meet the Devon sky. Stopping my car between Malborough and Salcombe I see a flattish horizon lying around me: the hill tops mark the surface of a gently wavering plateau. Just a few gentle undulations here and there detract from the general impression of a broad concordance of summits in the countryside between Dartmoor and the coast.
You can only see this plateau landscape from high places; stand anywhere in between them and you will just see hills and valleys. Car drivers in the South Hams are forever climbing slopes or dipping into troughs - but summit views tell a wide and level story. In the same way, a trawler captain might rise to a wave top and see all crests forming a composite, flat horizon that belies the rising and falling of his little ship.
The high points include summits at East Prawle (443 m), Blackdown Rings at Loddiswell (580 m) and Stanborough Camp (700 m). Lying between them and the sea is a complex, rolling mass of lesser hills, slopes, valleys and coombes that form the physical heart of the South Hams. We should not forget the contribution made by the long, dendritic estuaries - the rias - that penetrate the land mass, where lower reaches of valleys such as the Erme and Dart have been drowned by the sea. These valleys continue inland and are fed by a welter of coombes scooped out of red-brown Devonian bedrock.
I have never understood the origins of this summit phenomenon. Old-time geographers talk about peneplanation, suggesting that the landscape was planed off in the late Neogene period. My teenage mind's eye used to hold an image of an immense wave-cut platform uplifted and then dissected by rivers. That does not make sense. What about glaciation - have the summits been planed by ice sheets? There is no evidence that this landscape has suffered anything more than periglacial processes in the freezing hinterland beyond the southern limits of Pleistocene glaciation. The slopes and coombes are thickly bedded with frost-shattered debris, but not outwash gravels nor till - not even on Dartmoor. There remains the idea of subaerial erosion as the most plausible agent, set against a history of rising and falling land levels over millions of years.
The rocks underlying the South Hams are mostly of Lower Devonian age - mostly slates and mudstones, perhaps 410 million years old. You can see them everywhere in walls, or in rocky lanes.
Supposing the South Hams were an extremely ancient terrain, perhaps tens of millions of years old. Suppose an eroded landscape of Devonian rocks was once covered by the sea, buried in sediment and then uncovered - then perhaps buried again, then exhumed once more - and all the while the land levels and sea levels were rising and falling over immense stretches of time. The South Hams landscape may have been roofed and unroofed several times over, and what survives is a battered and extremely ancient relict terrain, now seen as a complex of flat summits, hills and coombes - over which farms and villages, woods and hedgerows have been laid out in the blink of an eye.
I cast my imagination 60 million years into the future. Like HG Wells' time traveller, I see the land and its wrinkled skin of green landscape blur and then dissolve.
What's left there is ocean.
.
You can only see this plateau landscape from high places; stand anywhere in between them and you will just see hills and valleys. Car drivers in the South Hams are forever climbing slopes or dipping into troughs - but summit views tell a wide and level story. In the same way, a trawler captain might rise to a wave top and see all crests forming a composite, flat horizon that belies the rising and falling of his little ship.
The high points include summits at East Prawle (443 m), Blackdown Rings at Loddiswell (580 m) and Stanborough Camp (700 m). Lying between them and the sea is a complex, rolling mass of lesser hills, slopes, valleys and coombes that form the physical heart of the South Hams. We should not forget the contribution made by the long, dendritic estuaries - the rias - that penetrate the land mass, where lower reaches of valleys such as the Erme and Dart have been drowned by the sea. These valleys continue inland and are fed by a welter of coombes scooped out of red-brown Devonian bedrock.
I have never understood the origins of this summit phenomenon. Old-time geographers talk about peneplanation, suggesting that the landscape was planed off in the late Neogene period. My teenage mind's eye used to hold an image of an immense wave-cut platform uplifted and then dissected by rivers. That does not make sense. What about glaciation - have the summits been planed by ice sheets? There is no evidence that this landscape has suffered anything more than periglacial processes in the freezing hinterland beyond the southern limits of Pleistocene glaciation. The slopes and coombes are thickly bedded with frost-shattered debris, but not outwash gravels nor till - not even on Dartmoor. There remains the idea of subaerial erosion as the most plausible agent, set against a history of rising and falling land levels over millions of years.
The rocks underlying the South Hams are mostly of Lower Devonian age - mostly slates and mudstones, perhaps 410 million years old. You can see them everywhere in walls, or in rocky lanes.
Supposing the South Hams were an extremely ancient terrain, perhaps tens of millions of years old. Suppose an eroded landscape of Devonian rocks was once covered by the sea, buried in sediment and then uncovered - then perhaps buried again, then exhumed once more - and all the while the land levels and sea levels were rising and falling over immense stretches of time. The South Hams landscape may have been roofed and unroofed several times over, and what survives is a battered and extremely ancient relict terrain, now seen as a complex of flat summits, hills and coombes - over which farms and villages, woods and hedgerows have been laid out in the blink of an eye.
I cast my imagination 60 million years into the future. Like HG Wells' time traveller, I see the land and its wrinkled skin of green landscape blur and then dissolve.
What's left there is ocean.
.
Sunday, 5 June 2016
Pholcus
Spider life continues at the Bungalow, and so does my ongoing campaign to keep it under control. I first realised I had problem in August 2013, returning from a French holiday and shocked to find the house had
become a havishambling cat's cradle of webbery. I'm talking about Pholcus phalangioides - the daddy-longlegs spider, spindly and twizzling when touched - not the trad house spiders Tegenaria atrica
- large, brown, leggy gallopers. When the cat's away, the pholcids will play. Webs were everywhere, and a shocked
awareness that my fortnight's absence had provided them with a wonderful
opportunity to make jamboree. The work began: removal with plastic cup &
postcard or - at my most ruthless - vacuum suction.
Today, June 4th 2016, I have removed three more specimens: a hen with egg sac from the bathroom, a small male from the spare room and a large male from the lobby (see photo). They were not there yesterday. I have learned pholcid habits. They lurk about unseen among the furniture - "in undisturbed, low light locations", as one website puts it [1] - until something (pheromones?) prompts them to rise: they climb up the wall then begin optimistically to spin next to the ceiling. That is when they become visible and removal become practical. The vacant space is likely to become filled again within a week, as natural territorial recruitment proceeds. Small spiders are so diaphanous that they are almost invisible in the shadows. It is best for me to wait until they rise - then cup them. It has become a form of domestic sport. All of them are taken out into the garden and released. Presumably the new environment is a bit of a shock to their system, as pholcids are a family preferring warmer climes, only holding on in Britain thanks to hospitable caves and anthropogenic living spaces. "Pholcus inhabits houses where the average temperature throughout the year exceeds 50ºF (10ºC)." [2]
Yesterday I removed another hen with eggs and two small males. The day before that, one specimen; the previous day, three. The removal process has been proceeding smoothly, even through the winter when one might expect them to be a bit less active. The temperate atmosphere in the Bungalow seems to suit them in all seasons. Last year I reckoned I had been removing anything from between one and as many as six spiders per day. Given a rough average of three per day, that made a sporting total of 365 x 3, an estimated 1095 individuals. Removals have proceeded at the same rate this year. Going back to 2013, I am looking at a running total of over 3,000.
Although pholcids have their place in the ecology of the Bungalow (for one thing, they are efficient predators of house spiders, which I don't like), my sporting campaign will continue. Even if I move house I dare say one or two of them will follow me somehow, and begin again their attempt to spin wispy chaos in my domestic world.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
1 - Animal Diversity Web
2 - British Arachnological Society
Wednesday, 13 April 2016
Salcombe
Salcombe is a Devon sea town of white houses and grey roofs set on a rounded hillside. Sometimes a quite modest house with a good aspect can sell for a million, especially if it looks onto the harbour or estuary - that steep notch in the coast where tidal waters surge in and out of the South Hams through a drowned valley or ría, flanked on one side by the craggy rocks of Bolt and the lower cliffs of Portlemouth Down on the other. This is the window frame through which Salcombe views the outer world and mariners see the town. Climbing tiers of houses are interlaced with dark holm oaks and umbrella pines, giving the town a Mediterranean feel. Its spirit looks seaward and southward.
28-3-2016
My sister Pip and I went walking today in the sunny, breezy aftermath of a storm which had battered Devon with 70 mph winds and driving rain the night before. Salcombe has interesting routes for walkers to choose from: pretty, high-banked lanes that loop inland through woods and secluded coombes, or climb to bald summits with panoramic views; coastal paths that go tracking out round the estuary's gentle indentations or threading boldly the harsh, sea-girt declivities of Bolt.
There are also paths in the town where the nature of Devon and far-off places are mingled in startling southern conjugations. Wooded slopes too steep for houses show a native flora of oak and hazel, pennywort and primrose enriched by all kinds of exotic garden escapes. The mild oceanic climate means that local gardeners can be adventurous with their choice of plants: one of the footpaths is overhung with a pineapple palm (Phoenix canariensis) from the Canary Islands. Southern species such as the holm oak (Quercus ilex) may last have been native here 10 million years ago in the Miocene, when subtropical forest covered Britain, including elements of the beautiful laurissilva now found in the Macaronesian group of islands off the African coast (e.g. Madeira, Tenerife, Cape Verde). They were later pushed south by advancing Pleistocene ice sheets, but have now returned - with human help.
My most joyous discovery has been the tree echium, Echium pininana, from the Canary Islands. As we followed a wooded path we came upon spectacular, long-stalked, bushy plants, rather like dark-green shaggy clubs. Dried woody remnants of last year's dead stalks towered alongside us, reaching well above head height.
Tree echium has an interesting story, recently deciphered by botanists using molecular genetics [1]. The genus Echium originated as a herbaceous plant living round the Mediterranean, then spread to the Macaronesian islands when they formed, one after the other, by volcanic action over the last 20 million years. As Darwin and other have noted, herbaceous plants on islands tend to evolve a woody growth habit, so a new range of woody Echium species evolved in Macaronesia, able to grow to a remarkable height. Echium pininana is one of them, an endemic of La Palma in the Canaries. Research shows that it arrived in the Pliocene epoch about 3.73 million years ago [2].
I have never visited the Canary Islands, but I have been captivated by photos of their enchanting forests, volcanic mountains and luminous atmosphere. They are on my life's list of places to visit. I would not be put off by the thronging coastal holiday resorts; they'd just be a cheap place to roost in between day excursions to explore the vegetated, rocky interior. If I were on La Palma I'd make a point of seeking out Echium pininana. It is not too late for me to do it.
Tree echium is a monocarpic plant. That means it flowers once then dies. It lays down wood then builds itself up over two or three years before spending itself in one final, magnificent, spire-shaped spasm of mauvy-blue flowers. I may never make it to the Canaries, but I'll be happy to visit Salcombe again one July or August to catch Echium pininana at its moment of Macaronesian glory. The plants I saw this week look as though they are preparing themselves for a mighty show.
References
1 - Bohle, U-R et al (1996): Island colonization and evolution of the insular woody habit in Echium L. (Boraginaceae); Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol.93, pp.11740-11745/.
Online at: http://www.pnas.org/content/93/21/11740.full.pdf [April 2016]
2 - Kim, S-C et al (2008): Timing and Tempo of Early and Successive Adaptive Radiations in Macaronesia; PLoS ONE. 2008; 3(5): e2139.
Online at: http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC2367450#pone.0002139-FranciscoOrtega2/. [April 2016]
28-3-2016
My sister Pip and I went walking today in the sunny, breezy aftermath of a storm which had battered Devon with 70 mph winds and driving rain the night before. Salcombe has interesting routes for walkers to choose from: pretty, high-banked lanes that loop inland through woods and secluded coombes, or climb to bald summits with panoramic views; coastal paths that go tracking out round the estuary's gentle indentations or threading boldly the harsh, sea-girt declivities of Bolt.
There are also paths in the town where the nature of Devon and far-off places are mingled in startling southern conjugations. Wooded slopes too steep for houses show a native flora of oak and hazel, pennywort and primrose enriched by all kinds of exotic garden escapes. The mild oceanic climate means that local gardeners can be adventurous with their choice of plants: one of the footpaths is overhung with a pineapple palm (Phoenix canariensis) from the Canary Islands. Southern species such as the holm oak (Quercus ilex) may last have been native here 10 million years ago in the Miocene, when subtropical forest covered Britain, including elements of the beautiful laurissilva now found in the Macaronesian group of islands off the African coast (e.g. Madeira, Tenerife, Cape Verde). They were later pushed south by advancing Pleistocene ice sheets, but have now returned - with human help.
My most joyous discovery has been the tree echium, Echium pininana, from the Canary Islands. As we followed a wooded path we came upon spectacular, long-stalked, bushy plants, rather like dark-green shaggy clubs. Dried woody remnants of last year's dead stalks towered alongside us, reaching well above head height.
Tree echium has an interesting story, recently deciphered by botanists using molecular genetics [1]. The genus Echium originated as a herbaceous plant living round the Mediterranean, then spread to the Macaronesian islands when they formed, one after the other, by volcanic action over the last 20 million years. As Darwin and other have noted, herbaceous plants on islands tend to evolve a woody growth habit, so a new range of woody Echium species evolved in Macaronesia, able to grow to a remarkable height. Echium pininana is one of them, an endemic of La Palma in the Canaries. Research shows that it arrived in the Pliocene epoch about 3.73 million years ago [2].
I have never visited the Canary Islands, but I have been captivated by photos of their enchanting forests, volcanic mountains and luminous atmosphere. They are on my life's list of places to visit. I would not be put off by the thronging coastal holiday resorts; they'd just be a cheap place to roost in between day excursions to explore the vegetated, rocky interior. If I were on La Palma I'd make a point of seeking out Echium pininana. It is not too late for me to do it.
Tree echium is a monocarpic plant. That means it flowers once then dies. It lays down wood then builds itself up over two or three years before spending itself in one final, magnificent, spire-shaped spasm of mauvy-blue flowers. I may never make it to the Canaries, but I'll be happy to visit Salcombe again one July or August to catch Echium pininana at its moment of Macaronesian glory. The plants I saw this week look as though they are preparing themselves for a mighty show.
 |
| Echium pininana photographed on Guernsey. Image courtesy La Société Guernesiaise. |
References
1 - Bohle, U-R et al (1996): Island colonization and evolution of the insular woody habit in Echium L. (Boraginaceae); Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol.93, pp.11740-11745/.
Online at: http://www.pnas.org/content/93/21/11740.full.pdf [April 2016]
2 - Kim, S-C et al (2008): Timing and Tempo of Early and Successive Adaptive Radiations in Macaronesia; PLoS ONE. 2008; 3(5): e2139.
Online at: http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC2367450#pone.0002139-FranciscoOrtega2/. [April 2016]
Wednesday, 10 February 2016
Les Rats de Montfaucon
I have been dipping into 'Gleanings in Natural History' by Edward Jesse (John Murray, London, 1834). It is a collection of miscellaneous essays and notes on plants and animals, half bound in green leather with beautifully marbled boards. I have been searching for information about eels. However yesterday I allowed allowed myself to be distracted by stories about other animals. What I read about the rats of Montfaucon made my hair stand on end.
Montfaucon is an area on the north-eastern side of Paris, part of the unexceptional quartier called Les Buttes-Chaumont. As I remember from my days living in the city, its greatest attraction is a public park with interesting rocky terrain, sited in some old sandstone quarries. Two hundred years ago it was a frightful place.
Until 1760 it had been home to the biggest gibbet in France: a square, three-storey building, like a stone-built warehouse with windows, open on three sides with an access ramp to the rear; each window could hold a hanged body, sixty windows all round. A factory of public execution. The smell of the place and the crowd of dogs and carrions birds were atrocious.[1]
At the same time, Montfaucon housed the capital's night soil processing factory, la voirie de matières fécales, at which excrement collected by cart was processed into valuable 'poudrette' fertiliser. It was sited in one of the disused quarries, and consisted in a descending series of linked basins. Liquid matter was gradually drained off, and the solids progressively matured into a nitrogenous earthy material for resale.[2]
Two horse knacker's yards and rendering plants were situated in another quarry. They were able to process 15,000 carcases per year (that means 288 per week; 41 per day). Products included hide, hair, grease and maggots (for fishing and raising poultry). Every night a horde of rats sallied out from drain pipes and holes and stripped the carcases clean of anything edible. Only the bones remained by morning.
Sometimes the rats themselves fell victim to campaigns of extermination and commercial exploitation - as many as 2,500 could be killed in one night, tackled with a poisonous mixture of arsenic and flour or by dogs, sticks and flaming torches. Their miserable skins had some value. The tricky thing was not to provoke them into making a panicky exodus into surrounding housing estates.
When the wind was in the north, all Paris suffered from the suffocating stench of Montfaucon. As the population of the city grew, people lost patience with the place. Also, the rats were becoming a mortal danger, and not just to lone drunkards and tramps. Buildings and public infrastructure were being undermined by their burrowing.
The trigger for change was an outbreak of cholera in the city in 1832, leading to a public health campaign and a final decision to close the site. The night soil processing was moved to the Forest of Bondy, some 15 km east of the city. But what of the knacker's yards?
The question had evidently been debated for some time, as Edward Jesse wrote:
Montfaucon was finally closed in 1849 [4], and re-opened as Buttes-Chaumont Park in 1867. I have not been able to find an account of the closure of the site. I suspect the feared rodent apocalypse never happened. Dogs, poison, sticks and flaming torches can accomplish great work.
If pure stench and carnal corruption are revelations of Hell then Montfaucon was surely a Hell on Earth. Sad to say, it was not an exceptional one. There were in those days many fragments of living Hell in the world, where living things were tortured or recycled without compassion by their fellow beings or obliviously by the plutonic processes of decay and putrefaction. The slaughterhouses of Regency England are a case in point. Today such facilities are sanitised and closely regulated, as are facilities for sewage processing and capital punishment. Today they are conducted pretty well out of sight and mind. However, we need the story of places such as Montfaucon to remind us of the existential truths our civilisation has masked, and indeed what civilisation has accomplished over the last two centuries. Is there such a thing as progress? I think the story of Montfaucon is clear evidence that there is.
Who can say what further progress may yet be made in the spheres of justice, waste disposal and animal rights?
References
[1] - Le Gibet de Montfaucon, at: Plateau Hassard: Le Blog - http://plateauhassard.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/le-gibet-de-montfaucon.html
[2] - La Voirie de Montfaucon, at: Plateau Hassard: Le Blog - http://plateauhassard.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/la-voirie-de-montfaucon.html
[3] - 'La Ville des Rats', by Théophile Gautier (1838) - http://www.theophilegautier.fr/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/La-Ville-des-rats.pdf
[4] - La Voirie de Montfaucon, at Wikipedia - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voirie_de_Montfaucon/
Montfaucon is an area on the north-eastern side of Paris, part of the unexceptional quartier called Les Buttes-Chaumont. As I remember from my days living in the city, its greatest attraction is a public park with interesting rocky terrain, sited in some old sandstone quarries. Two hundred years ago it was a frightful place.
Until 1760 it had been home to the biggest gibbet in France: a square, three-storey building, like a stone-built warehouse with windows, open on three sides with an access ramp to the rear; each window could hold a hanged body, sixty windows all round. A factory of public execution. The smell of the place and the crowd of dogs and carrions birds were atrocious.[1]
 |
| Le Gibet De Montfaucon. Image courtesy http://www.parisenbreves.fr/breves/140 |
At the same time, Montfaucon housed the capital's night soil processing factory, la voirie de matières fécales, at which excrement collected by cart was processed into valuable 'poudrette' fertiliser. It was sited in one of the disused quarries, and consisted in a descending series of linked basins. Liquid matter was gradually drained off, and the solids progressively matured into a nitrogenous earthy material for resale.[2]
Two horse knacker's yards and rendering plants were situated in another quarry. They were able to process 15,000 carcases per year (that means 288 per week; 41 per day). Products included hide, hair, grease and maggots (for fishing and raising poultry). Every night a horde of rats sallied out from drain pipes and holes and stripped the carcases clean of anything edible. Only the bones remained by morning.
 |
| The knacker's yard at Montfaucon (Parent-Duchatelet, 1827) Image courtesy http://insitu.revues.org/10512 |
 |
| A knacker's shed at Montfaucon, 1831. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons |
When the wind was in the north, all Paris suffered from the suffocating stench of Montfaucon. As the population of the city grew, people lost patience with the place. Also, the rats were becoming a mortal danger, and not just to lone drunkards and tramps. Buildings and public infrastructure were being undermined by their burrowing.
The trigger for change was an outbreak of cholera in the city in 1832, leading to a public health campaign and a final decision to close the site. The night soil processing was moved to the Forest of Bondy, some 15 km east of the city. But what of the knacker's yards?
The question had evidently been debated for some time, as Edward Jesse wrote:
The most interesting account of rats I have met with, was made some time ago in an official report to the French government. It was drawn up in consequence of a proposition made for the removal of a horse slaughter-house at Montfaucon, to a greater distance from Paris, when one of the chief obstacles urged against such a removal, was the fear entertained of the dangerous consequences that might result to the neighbourhood, from suddenly depriving these voracious vermin of their accustomed sustenance. (p.311)The writer Théophile Gautier (1838) likened the potential rat problem to a volcano - 'Naples has its Vesuvius, and Paris has its Montfaucon', he wrote [3]. He dramatically explained the situation for prurient readers:
The rats of Montfaucon are no ordinary rats; the abundance and quality of their food has developed them prodigiously; these are Herculean rats, enormous, huge as elephants, ferocious as tigers, with teeth of steel and claws of iron; rats that make one or at most two mouthfuls of a cat; the fields they cross are trodden down as though an army had passed through with its artillery, baggage train, ammunition wagons and field smithies; the clay they carry on their feet gives this trackway a greenish hue that distinguishes it from other paths: these routeways, toughened as if by tarmacadam, terminate at subterranean ratopoli with immense tunnelworks where innumerable gnawing and devouring populations swarm…
Those who dine like Belshazzar at Montfaucon, suddenly missing their sustenance, will come into Paris to eat human instead of horse meat.
Montfaucon was finally closed in 1849 [4], and re-opened as Buttes-Chaumont Park in 1867. I have not been able to find an account of the closure of the site. I suspect the feared rodent apocalypse never happened. Dogs, poison, sticks and flaming torches can accomplish great work.
If pure stench and carnal corruption are revelations of Hell then Montfaucon was surely a Hell on Earth. Sad to say, it was not an exceptional one. There were in those days many fragments of living Hell in the world, where living things were tortured or recycled without compassion by their fellow beings or obliviously by the plutonic processes of decay and putrefaction. The slaughterhouses of Regency England are a case in point. Today such facilities are sanitised and closely regulated, as are facilities for sewage processing and capital punishment. Today they are conducted pretty well out of sight and mind. However, we need the story of places such as Montfaucon to remind us of the existential truths our civilisation has masked, and indeed what civilisation has accomplished over the last two centuries. Is there such a thing as progress? I think the story of Montfaucon is clear evidence that there is.
Who can say what further progress may yet be made in the spheres of justice, waste disposal and animal rights?
References
[1] - Le Gibet de Montfaucon, at: Plateau Hassard: Le Blog - http://plateauhassard.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/le-gibet-de-montfaucon.html
[2] - La Voirie de Montfaucon, at: Plateau Hassard: Le Blog - http://plateauhassard.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/la-voirie-de-montfaucon.html
[3] - 'La Ville des Rats', by Théophile Gautier (1838) - http://www.theophilegautier.fr/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/La-Ville-des-rats.pdf
[4] - La Voirie de Montfaucon, at Wikipedia - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voirie_de_Montfaucon/
Tuesday, 9 February 2016
In the South Downs
4-1-2016
I do not know the South Downs, but my visit to Petersfield last week was drawn into their power. They looked grey and brooding in the mizzling weather blowing up from the south.
Locals must be familiar with these hills and the bulk that forms a backdrop to their lives: southwards towards Burriton, westwards to Ramsdean, northwards to Steep. They frame all views except eastward, into Sussex, where the Weald lies.
The hills are chalk; their summits are mostly bare and their slopes are mostly wooded. In past centuries they would have been given over to sheep, with flocks crossing the downland turf. The Downs remain but sheep and downland are mostly a memory now, as arable or tree plantations have taken over. What would the poet Edward Thomas have made of this? He lived at Steep; he walked these hills, knew their paths and people; he digested what he saw and felt, he distilled it into his ungainly yet ecstatic, wild yet thoughtful writing, in which the character of nature is blended with his own troubled soul. He chronicled the pre-War world just before it crumbled. He wrote a book 'The South Country' and filled it with his response to the Downs.
My friend Jonathan runs a sawmill near Butser Hill. He manages Whitelands Wood, with its modern stands of ash and western red cedar climbing the northern flanks of the hill. He nurtures a few ancient yew trees in clearings. He delights in the wood's biodiversity. Old man's beard scrambles along the fences and up the trees; Roman snails still live in the rough chalky soil. Otherwise there are few traces of the ancient downland visible on old maps and which developed here since the Bronze Age. Constant grazing is just not practical. Times have changed.
On Tuesday Jonathan and I drove to the Shepherd's Church at Didling, with his son Bede and grey, shaggy lurcher Beaumont for company. The chalk escarpment runs east-west here, fronted by a dark ribbon of woodland; its summits are green and bare. The church stands alone, surrounded by fields and is reached by a farm track, which becomes a footpath that continues towards Didling Hill. We paid our respects to this ancient shrine before walking on, with Beaumont trotting along in a universe of smells. The day was patchy sunlight with passing clouds. I became absorbed by the hill's wooded presence as we climbed towards it. Edward Thomas's words were flickering through my thoughts: old man's beard, 'that hoar-green feathery herb' and how the scent of its shrivelled seed heads evoked unplaceable memories; the shell of 'a little snail bleached in the grass, chips of flint and mite of chalk'; the badger, 'that most ancient Briton of English beasts', dug from his sett and given to the hounds in a dark combe with 'sliding chalk by beech and yew and perishing juniper'.
We passed a chalk pit; we entered the wood.
The world changed - ash and yew crowding around us. Deprived of grassy cover, the topsoil showed bare flint and chalk in the gloom beneath the trees, which the deer had browsed into a canopy just below head height. Brown and white earth from a badger's sett was mounded up between the roots of a large ash. A pile of yew seeds in various stages of decomposition marked a vole's winter feasting place. Beaumont was in his element, alert, alive and questing. We diverged from the path a bit, exploring tree bark with a forester's eye, reading the past written into its hard, rumpled textures. Jonathan noticed a scatter of prehistoric flint knapping debris underfoot, white shards glowing in tree shade - they would have been hidden by an overgrowth of turf had this been open downland. In places I found my feet struggling to grip on the sloping soil, the sliding chalk.
The old world of the downs finds shelter beneath the trees. Here, we move into a different, set-aside space on a north-facing scarp too steep for farming. Root and tree, teeth and fur, flint and bone; the smell of earth and vegetable decay; animal trails, invisible. The elder world seems closer here, with Thomas's sturdy footsteps close behind us and the whisper of corduroy as he walks past, struggling with his thoughts. He has a weekend's leave from the Army; he is walking to clear his head, clear the turbulence of a homecoming to his wife Helen and their three clamouring children ten miles way in the cottage at Steep. They only remember him as he was before he enlisted. He is walking to find the words he needs, to encounter places where his own nature can do its work of healing; he strides out to forget everything on earth 'except that it is lovelier than any mysteries'. He sees a fallow deer as it watches him under the trees; it stamps then runs. He finds himself alone.
We turned and left the wood.We hadn't even reached its upper margins, where open skies and downland begin - I don't know why: I would have relished a summit view. For some reason the wood had been enough, a saturation. Beaumont trotted on across the reseeded grass ley, indifferent to its green monoculture.
Meaning flourishes in spots of diversity in the landscape, like a 13th century flint church, a pile of yew seeds between the roots of a tree, or the smell of a badger.
Such things are worth walking to find.
I do not know the South Downs, but my visit to Petersfield last week was drawn into their power. They looked grey and brooding in the mizzling weather blowing up from the south.
Locals must be familiar with these hills and the bulk that forms a backdrop to their lives: southwards towards Burriton, westwards to Ramsdean, northwards to Steep. They frame all views except eastward, into Sussex, where the Weald lies.
The hills are chalk; their summits are mostly bare and their slopes are mostly wooded. In past centuries they would have been given over to sheep, with flocks crossing the downland turf. The Downs remain but sheep and downland are mostly a memory now, as arable or tree plantations have taken over. What would the poet Edward Thomas have made of this? He lived at Steep; he walked these hills, knew their paths and people; he digested what he saw and felt, he distilled it into his ungainly yet ecstatic, wild yet thoughtful writing, in which the character of nature is blended with his own troubled soul. He chronicled the pre-War world just before it crumbled. He wrote a book 'The South Country' and filled it with his response to the Downs.
My friend Jonathan runs a sawmill near Butser Hill. He manages Whitelands Wood, with its modern stands of ash and western red cedar climbing the northern flanks of the hill. He nurtures a few ancient yew trees in clearings. He delights in the wood's biodiversity. Old man's beard scrambles along the fences and up the trees; Roman snails still live in the rough chalky soil. Otherwise there are few traces of the ancient downland visible on old maps and which developed here since the Bronze Age. Constant grazing is just not practical. Times have changed.
 |
| Buried path - a former downland trackway, with flints and mosses underfoot |
On Tuesday Jonathan and I drove to the Shepherd's Church at Didling, with his son Bede and grey, shaggy lurcher Beaumont for company. The chalk escarpment runs east-west here, fronted by a dark ribbon of woodland; its summits are green and bare. The church stands alone, surrounded by fields and is reached by a farm track, which becomes a footpath that continues towards Didling Hill. We paid our respects to this ancient shrine before walking on, with Beaumont trotting along in a universe of smells. The day was patchy sunlight with passing clouds. I became absorbed by the hill's wooded presence as we climbed towards it. Edward Thomas's words were flickering through my thoughts: old man's beard, 'that hoar-green feathery herb' and how the scent of its shrivelled seed heads evoked unplaceable memories; the shell of 'a little snail bleached in the grass, chips of flint and mite of chalk'; the badger, 'that most ancient Briton of English beasts', dug from his sett and given to the hounds in a dark combe with 'sliding chalk by beech and yew and perishing juniper'.
We passed a chalk pit; we entered the wood.
The world changed - ash and yew crowding around us. Deprived of grassy cover, the topsoil showed bare flint and chalk in the gloom beneath the trees, which the deer had browsed into a canopy just below head height. Brown and white earth from a badger's sett was mounded up between the roots of a large ash. A pile of yew seeds in various stages of decomposition marked a vole's winter feasting place. Beaumont was in his element, alert, alive and questing. We diverged from the path a bit, exploring tree bark with a forester's eye, reading the past written into its hard, rumpled textures. Jonathan noticed a scatter of prehistoric flint knapping debris underfoot, white shards glowing in tree shade - they would have been hidden by an overgrowth of turf had this been open downland. In places I found my feet struggling to grip on the sloping soil, the sliding chalk.
The old world of the downs finds shelter beneath the trees. Here, we move into a different, set-aside space on a north-facing scarp too steep for farming. Root and tree, teeth and fur, flint and bone; the smell of earth and vegetable decay; animal trails, invisible. The elder world seems closer here, with Thomas's sturdy footsteps close behind us and the whisper of corduroy as he walks past, struggling with his thoughts. He has a weekend's leave from the Army; he is walking to clear his head, clear the turbulence of a homecoming to his wife Helen and their three clamouring children ten miles way in the cottage at Steep. They only remember him as he was before he enlisted. He is walking to find the words he needs, to encounter places where his own nature can do its work of healing; he strides out to forget everything on earth 'except that it is lovelier than any mysteries'. He sees a fallow deer as it watches him under the trees; it stamps then runs. He finds himself alone.
We turned and left the wood.We hadn't even reached its upper margins, where open skies and downland begin - I don't know why: I would have relished a summit view. For some reason the wood had been enough, a saturation. Beaumont trotted on across the reseeded grass ley, indifferent to its green monoculture.
Meaning flourishes in spots of diversity in the landscape, like a 13th century flint church, a pile of yew seeds between the roots of a tree, or the smell of a badger.
Such things are worth walking to find.
 |
| Edward Thomas |
Monday, 28 September 2015
Norwich 3000 AD
What will Norwich be like in 3000 AD?
That's only 40 generations away - just an instant in geological time.
The city and its environs are likely to look very different from today. We shall clearly be in the Anthropocene Epoch. While we cannot be sure what local details will be like, we can project something of the wider environmental changes which are likely to set the scene. To guess the elements of the biological and cultural environment at the dawn of the 4th millennium means analysing present trends and extrapolating them into a range of potential scenarios.
Factors include the burning of fossil fuels, shifts in biodiversity, the impact of human population growth and migration, shifts in land-use, the likelihood of conflict and warfare, technological changes including the growth of biotechnology, growing resource depletion (notably soil and water), the possibility of catastrophic events such as volcanic eruptions, and even the possibility of human extinction.
What follows is a conjectural reconstruction based on present trends, enlivened by some imaginative interpretation.
- The closest historical analogue we have for the predicted climate over the next century is the Mid-Pliocene warm period c. 3 million years ago. CO2 values are estimated to have reached 360–440 parts per million, and global mean annual temperatures were approximately 3 deg C higher than today (Salzmann et al 2009). However, for 3000 AD the closest climatic analogue we have for the planet is the early Eocene Epoch, c.50 million years ago, when the world was much hotter and there little or no ice at the poles. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocene and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum/.
- In our imagined scenario, fossil fuel consumption continued through the 21st century, notably coal use in China, although peak oil production occurred as early as 2022. The resulting global warming/heating lasted for five centuries before the climate slowly reached an equilibrium state in the 27th century. It caused deglaciation of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and thermal expansion of the oceans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise), leading to sea-level rise of over 6 metres. Low-lying coastal areas of Norfolk were inundated and there was a corresponding landward shift of wetland environments. An estuarine environment now extends up the Yare and Wensum valleys as far as Bowthorpe and Drayton (http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/), with fringing mud flats and saltmarshes.
- The average global temperature in 3000 is over 6 deg C warmer than today. Thus, the average annual temperature in the UK may be comparable with southern Spain today. (http://www.climate-charts.com/World-Climate-Maps.html#temperature). However, in this imagined scenario dangerous exponential global heating has not occurred (c.f. Wasdell 2007). If it had, we would be envisaging a catastrophic scenario.
- Carbon dioxide levels are much higher than today’s levels, at over 1500 parts per million. (In 2013 the Mauna Loa observatory records broke the 400 ppm barrier; global pre-industrial levels were 280 ppm.) At these levels, the area would be experiencing a climate approaching those of the early Eocene Epoch (50 million years ago) see http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=1380 (n.b. peak Eocene levels were 2000 ppm (http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1038/35021000?locale=en).
- Atmospheric methane levels are likely to be higher than today. Forcing factors over the 3rd millennium included release of methane hydrates in the ocean and melting of tundra permafrost due to global warming; there was also a volcanic eruption (perhaps in Iceland). This resulted in abrupt shifts in global climatic patterns and amplified positive feedback loops in the weather systems, which lead to several centuries of intense weather instability. Methane levels stabilised after 2400 due to natural attenuation., but remained at concentrations eight times pre-industrial levels (https://en.ikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum; Sloan et al 2000).
- Unstable weather has become normal, with periods of drought alternating with bouts of intense rainfall. This has led to widespread loss of topsoil and extensive gullying of farmland. As a result, much agriculture is now carried out using artificial media under shelter.
- Wildlife is different from that of today. Some Norfolk species were able to respond to the challenges of climate change by shifting their geographical distributions and life-cycles; others became extinct both locally and globally. Heightened temperature and CO2 levels mean that plant growth rates are now enhanced, and fungi, bacteria and algae different from today form the base of the trophic pyramid. Immigrant species typical of Mediterranean, African and Asian habitats today have become established, particularly hardy plants, insects and spiders. These include the malarial mosquitoes Anopheles atroparvus, which breeds in warm, brackish water along river estuaries. However, overall biodiversity has been grossly reduced, with fewer species forming the bulk of the biomass, including those resistant to pesticides and other environmental stresses. Many genetically-engineered feral and mutant species are present in the environment.
 |
Drought-resisting Mediterranean plants such as the pistachio
may be at home in Norfolk in 3000 AD.
|
- Catastrophic changes to marine life occurred in the 3rd millennium, with the cumulative impacts of ocean acidification and warming, over-fishing and pollution contributing to ecosystem collapse in the North Sea, ecological phase shifting, and the rise of algal and jellyfish blooms. The effects can still be seen in 3000 AD in the ecology of the Yare estuary, which has a deeply impoverished fauna compared with 2000 AD.
- Globalised human society has undergone radical transformations. Rapid social evolution and much migration of populations has taken place in step with the forcing effects of environmental change, resource depletion, population growth, political instability, disease and an increasingly hostile and unpredictable climate. For instance, an influx of refugees from drought-stricken lands bordering the Mediterranean led to 37% of the Norfolk population being of Spanish and North African descent by 2200. Natural Malthusian processes have acted to control the human population through various decades of disease and starvation; this was particularly true in the aftermath of an Icelandic volcanic eruption in the early 23rd century, which caused a Volcanic Winter lasting nine years and triggered increased global warming feedbacks in the climate system. In 2000 the world population was just over 6 billion, and this climbed to 9 billion by 2040, boosted by continuing use of fossil fuels and genetically engineered foodstuffs. Birth control policies were finally implemented in the 2100s and again in the 2700s, and the world population has now successfully been returned to what it was in the year 1950, and is now artificially maintained at that level.
- A variety of technlogical solutions to the problems of human life have been attempted, which imitate the functional logic of biological systems through biotech engineering, including bio-robotics and chlorophyll technology. The result is sustainable modular hive technology which guarantees human life is tolerable for the majority within certain limits. The recycling of water, nutrients and wastes are key considerations. Fabricated nutrients are an important component of human diet. What happens in the environment beyond the hive is a matter of general indifference to the human population; biodiversity is no longer a meaningful value. Biological entities are now valued in functional terms as sources of useful information and material resources to mitigate the effects of living on the depleted planet.
 |
Artificial food production, from the film ‘Soylent Green’
(dir. Richard Fleischer, USA 1973). Image courtesy http://www.dvdbeaver.com
|
Some local detail
- The Hub City of Norrich is surrounded by subcentres such as Catton and Erlem. The old University of East Anglia site was reclaimed in 2287 following the destruction of its buildings in the Third Boreal War a century earlier, which had been fought over the allocation of scarce water resources. The site was then used for hydroponic cultivation, and drew its fluid from the Yeh Estuary. An entry in the Solicon Archive for 2654 shows that the site was used as a location for a new Chlorofusion Reactor to power the Eton Sub. The view of the valley in 3000 is of an estuarine landscape seen through hot, misty air; a series of low buildings and plant growing installations line the valley sides. Biodiversity is dominated by hardy plants and insects; some herbivorous and insectivorous birds and small mammals are able to thrive in set-aside wilderness strips. The few trees permitted living space are those which been designed or selected for their functional value, and they are arranged in plantations sheltered by awnings and irrigated by a water collection system; rainfall is too erratic and violent for unsheltered and untended trees to survive.
- A tall stone monument to Old Earth was erected in the centre of Norrich in 2128, and its remains are still visible in 3000. The stonework has been eroded by acidic rainfall, and the lettering is poorly legible. It shows a vertical scale marked with a series of global CO2 concentration levels linked with dates. The design is topped with a stone ball chiselled in the likeness of the planet, and the side and back panels are carved with a profusion of interlaced plant and animal species, most of which are unfamiliar to the city’s inhabitants.
- Three attempts were made to colonise polar areas of the planet Mars in the 22nd century. Norrich contributed three couples to one of the expeditions. Each colony was abandoned after a few decades because of supply difficulties, psychological problems among the colonists and the adverse environment (Mars Colony II was buried by a dust storm). It is now generally accepted that planet Earth is the only viable home for the human species.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources and resources
o International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme: Have we entered the Anthropocene? – see http://www.igbp.net/5.d8b4c3c12bf3be638a8000578.html
o National Geographic (2004): Six Degrees Could Change The World – Video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKo4TSq40l0
o Lynas, M (2004): Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet; Harper Perennial
o Mitchell, D (2004): Cloud Atlas; Sceptre
o Reiter, P (2000): From Shakespeare to Defoe: Malaria in England in the Little Ice Age; Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol.6, No.1 – see http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/6/1/00-0101_article.htm
o Salzmann, U, Haywood, AM and Lunt, DJ (2009): The past is the guide to the future? Comparing Middle Pliocene vegetation with predicted biome ditributions for the twenty-first century; Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 367
o Sloan, CL, Huber, H & Ewing, A (2000): Polar stratospheric cloud forcing in a greenhouse world; in: Abrantes, F & Mix, A 2000: Reconstructing the Ocean History; Springer Verlag
o Warrick et al (1990): The greenhouse effect and its implications for the European Community; Commission of the European Communities
o Wasdell, D (2007): Feedback Dynamics and the Acceleration of Climate Change; APPCCG – see http://www.apollo-gaia.org/BaliandBeyond.htm
o World Bank (2012): Turn Down The Heat - Why a 4 deg C warmer world must be avoided – see http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2012/11/18/Climate-change-report-warns-dramatically-warmer-world-this-century
 |
‘Norwich in AD 2035 - A prophetic fantasy’, by WT Watling
(Norwich Almanac and Record, 1935). Image courtesy Norfolk Record Office |
© Tim Holt-Wilson
July 2013/ Sept 2015
Sunday, 27 September 2015
The Blue Flower
19-9-2015
Small, intensely blue flowers are scattered in the sandy soil at my feet. They are pricking their way up among grass stalks here at Barnhamcross Common, near Thetford, England. The terrain is hummocky, showing historic scars from many years of digging for sand and gravel. This secluded corner of the Common is clothed with sedge and gorse, scattered oak and pine trees. It has a typical sandy Breckland soil, and lies not far from the Little Ouse river on level ground that was once part of the floodplain. In common with several of the Breckland heathland specialities, this blue flowering plant is tiny and unobtrusive, and yet quite beautiful in small detail.
I have a real sense of a discovery here. Not only is the plant's identity a puzzle to me - its flower-head reminds me of a scabious, but isn't like any kind of scabious I can identify - but its beauty calls out to me: all shades of blue are gathered in its complexion: azure, caerulean, gentian, lapis, sky. I take photographs that barely do justice to this luminous phenomenon.
24-9-15
I emailed a photo to Martin Sanford at the SBRC, Ipswich, asking for an identification. He named it as Sheep's-bit, Jasione montana, a member of the Campanula family that grows on light, sandy or stony soils. He said Barnhamcross Common is one of its known Breckland strongholds. The species is sparsely present in Norfolk - Beckett and Bull's 'A Flora of Norfolk' (1999) shows it as very localised, 'confined to short, acid turf', with its principal population centred in the dunes round Winterton-on-Sea. The 'Encyclopaedia of Life' maps Jasione montana as a native of the temperate parts of Europe. NatureGate in Finland says it is a native of rocky outcrops, sandy areas and hillsides.
Sheep's-bit has been expanding in my imagination. Its flowers are true-blue scintillae studded like stars against the gloomy backdrop of my daily thoughts. Harry Godwin's 'History of the British Flora' provides an interesting local history. Its fossil pollen has been identified from late Devensian (Weichselian) levels at Old Buckenham Mere, an almost dried-up natural lake about 15 miles away. The pollen was blown into it from surrounding land and preserved in the mud. This takes its history back over 12,000 years to the end of the Ice Age. It would have favoured the freely-draining, coversand soils and sparse vegetation of the period. He says it was also found in the Roman to Anglo-Saxon levels, and suggests it owes its presence here to agricultural disturbance of sandy soils thereabouts.
Such factors seem to be key to its survival at Barnhamcross Common. There is evidence that someone has deliberately broken the soil surface in places, presumably for bioconservation reasons - so preserving a suitable habitat. Instead of a blanket of over-shading sedge, gorse and trees, we have patches of open, disturbed ground that fosters greater floral diversity. In this way a delicate, late glacial species, with a local history of over 12,000 years, still flourishes in Breckland. Its flowers have the same blue that once reflected in the eyes of a Saxon farmer, a woolly rhinoceros or a tundra vole.
Sources
* Godwin, H: History of the British Flora - A factual basis for phytogeography; Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition, 1975.
* West, RG: Plant Life of the Quaternary Cold Stages - Evidence from the British Isles; Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Small, intensely blue flowers are scattered in the sandy soil at my feet. They are pricking their way up among grass stalks here at Barnhamcross Common, near Thetford, England. The terrain is hummocky, showing historic scars from many years of digging for sand and gravel. This secluded corner of the Common is clothed with sedge and gorse, scattered oak and pine trees. It has a typical sandy Breckland soil, and lies not far from the Little Ouse river on level ground that was once part of the floodplain. In common with several of the Breckland heathland specialities, this blue flowering plant is tiny and unobtrusive, and yet quite beautiful in small detail.
24-9-15
I emailed a photo to Martin Sanford at the SBRC, Ipswich, asking for an identification. He named it as Sheep's-bit, Jasione montana, a member of the Campanula family that grows on light, sandy or stony soils. He said Barnhamcross Common is one of its known Breckland strongholds. The species is sparsely present in Norfolk - Beckett and Bull's 'A Flora of Norfolk' (1999) shows it as very localised, 'confined to short, acid turf', with its principal population centred in the dunes round Winterton-on-Sea. The 'Encyclopaedia of Life' maps Jasione montana as a native of the temperate parts of Europe. NatureGate in Finland says it is a native of rocky outcrops, sandy areas and hillsides.
 | |
| The native distribution of Jasione montana @ The Encyclopaedia of Life |
Sheep's-bit has been expanding in my imagination. Its flowers are true-blue scintillae studded like stars against the gloomy backdrop of my daily thoughts. Harry Godwin's 'History of the British Flora' provides an interesting local history. Its fossil pollen has been identified from late Devensian (Weichselian) levels at Old Buckenham Mere, an almost dried-up natural lake about 15 miles away. The pollen was blown into it from surrounding land and preserved in the mud. This takes its history back over 12,000 years to the end of the Ice Age. It would have favoured the freely-draining, coversand soils and sparse vegetation of the period. He says it was also found in the Roman to Anglo-Saxon levels, and suggests it owes its presence here to agricultural disturbance of sandy soils thereabouts.
Such factors seem to be key to its survival at Barnhamcross Common. There is evidence that someone has deliberately broken the soil surface in places, presumably for bioconservation reasons - so preserving a suitable habitat. Instead of a blanket of over-shading sedge, gorse and trees, we have patches of open, disturbed ground that fosters greater floral diversity. In this way a delicate, late glacial species, with a local history of over 12,000 years, still flourishes in Breckland. Its flowers have the same blue that once reflected in the eyes of a Saxon farmer, a woolly rhinoceros or a tundra vole.
Sources
* Godwin, H: History of the British Flora - A factual basis for phytogeography; Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition, 1975.
* West, RG: Plant Life of the Quaternary Cold Stages - Evidence from the British Isles; Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Sunday, 21 September 2014
Shrews in my roof
18th August 2014
Today I took the opportunity to do some desk work out of doors, sitting on the terrace by the front door and proof-reading a book for a friend. Leaves were brushing the back of my neck from time to time as the wind stirred the vine there. It is a feature of the Bungalow garden: climbing up to the eaves and muffling the front of the house with a bright green jungle of stalks and questing tendrils.
The roof comes down to head height beside the front door. Twenty years ago we had a nest of hornets there. They were no bother - we saw them coming and going: they saw us doing the same; one of them was always on guard by the door to greet returning nest-mates and keep a weather eye open on the world; low-frequency murmurings heard at night, like Spitfires warming up on a distant aerodrome. I heard something different up there last week: a conversational twittering, scratchy and sporadic, like the sound of bats - or pixies. I could not quite locate the source: was it coming from a chimney stack or a hole in the tiles? I had a vision of furry faces swivelling about in the semi-darkness of the roofspace, discussing something important.
My reading was disturbed by rustling among the leaf litter under the vine. Nothing to be seen. A few minutes later the rustling came from higher up among the thicket of leaves. A quick movement, and there - silhouetted by sunlight crossing a branch in the heart of the leafage - unmistakably a shrew, climbing about, hunting and exploring; perhaps nervously taking its first foray out of the nest, its nose twitching about in frenetic hyper-mobility. The identity of my nattering neighbours became clear.
The locals call a shrew a 'ranny'. I'd like to think that the Latin name for a Common Shrew, Sorex araneus, owed something to the East Anglian dialect, or some obscure Viking root of it revived by Linnaeus who named them. Its name has another dimension for me: odour. It reminds me of the word 'rancid', and shrews have a reputation for smelling bad.
Shrews in my roof.... The twittering is apparently a 'low amplitude, broadband, multi-harmonic and frequency modulated' sound used as a form of echolocation [1]. Coupled with a rosette of stiff but sensitive whiskers around their snout and a good sense of smell, that must be how they they find their way around in the roof. Their eyesight is said to be poor. Judging by size, I think mine are most likely to be the Common Shrew rather than the Pygmy Shrew.
I have always thought of shrews as being members of the Order Insectivora, along with hedgehogs. However recent genetic studies have shown they are part of an Order Soricomorpha (''shrew-forms') which they share with moles and a rare family from the West Indies called the solenodons. The latter are living fossils, with relatives dating back to Cretaceous times, over 65 million years ago, and teeth which can deliver a poisonous bite like a snake. Other shrews, including the Common Shrew, are said to have a poisonous bite, but this is due to a toxin present in the saliva [2, 3, 4]. 'It is a ravening beast, feigning itself gentle and tame, but being touched it biteth deep, and poysoneth deadly', says Topsell [5]. I have not yet tested the truth of this.
There is something primaeval about this animal. How old is the species Sorex araneus? Scientists have traced shrew origins back to the Heterosoricidae, a family living in North America in Middle Eocene times, about 45 million years ago; behind them must lie some ranny-like Cretaceous mammal, as yet unknown. Later, the Soricinae family evolved, to which my Sorex shrews belong, and the earliest fossils of the genus are found in Germany, in the Middle Miocene, c.11 million years ago [6]. The earliest likely British record for S.araneus is from Hoxne, Suffolk, dated 400,000 BP [7]. The site is no more than two miles away from my house as the crow flies, and only yesterday in geological time. The species itself is not quite as ancient as I had imagined.
Strange to tell, shrews are one of the most studied animals on the planet. S.araneus is one of the few species whose genome has been completely mapped, and as a result we are able to carry out detailed studies of its subspecies and their distribution in time and space. Some surprising results have emerged. 30 years ago we thought it was just one species, but it now turns out to be five cryptic species, each with distinctive genetic signatures which directly contradict their apparent similarities in size, skeleton and bodily appearance [8]. Externally the look the same, but internally S.araneus is 'characterised by spectacular chromosomal variation' [8], and shows 'one of the most spectacular chromosomal evolutions ever recorded in mammals' [10]; it has evolved an extraordinary wealth of chromosomal races (karyotypes).
Since 1987 S.araneus has been the subject of a specialist research group called the International Sorex Araneus Cytogenetics Committee. Through the work of Jeremy Searle and others, it has been possible to divide the British population into six racial types and plot their geographies; from this we can work out the story of how the Common Shrew recolonised Britain after the last Ice Age, having spent it sheltering in a refugium area on the Continent, most likely in central Europe [8]. Some of the genetic diversity within the species seems to have adaptive value, as slightly different karyotypes are found in different habitats, for example shrews in bogs are different from those in dry grasslands [11]. Apparently shrews are a rapidly evolving species, and this helps adapt them to changing ecological niches and ultimately leads to the evolution of subspecies and - on a much longer time scale - species. I have no idea which race my shrews belong to, but quite possibly they are of the Oxford race discovered by Searle which is typical of Eastern England [12]. It now seems likely the fossil S.araneus from Hoxne is one of the cryptic subspecies. David Polly's research holds out the hope that we may eventually be able to tell them apart by the details of their molar teeth [8]. There is a lot more to shrews than meets the eye.
Tonight I saw one climb straight up a brick wall and disappear under the eaves. They are evidently bold and enterprising animals. They are also fevered and vulnerable beings, who live with death as a constant companion. Shrews have an incredibly fast metabolism, and when frightened their heart rate can shoot up to over 1200 beats per minute [13]; their digestion lives on a two-hour turnaround, so if they go without food for more than a few hours they will starve and quickly die [14]. I imagine they suffer greatly, passing their short and passionate lives in a ferment of hunger and competition for food and living space. I have often heard them shrieking at each other, hidden deep in the undergrowth of some grassy forest - 'a rapid succession of shrill cries, which pierce the ears like needles of sound' [15]. Gladiatorial screams of defiance, triumph and submission! If I wanted to tame one I would have to bring it offerings of woodlice, beetles and spiders, and promise to keep it in solitude. 'They love the rotten flesh of ravens', says Topsell, but I think I'd have to draw the line there.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soricidae#Echolocation.
2 - Buczacki, S. 2002: Fauna Britannica; Hamlyn.
3 - Poisonous Shrews, at: Shrew Culture, Myths, Stories and Poisonous Facts; The Shrew (ist's) Site aka 'The Shrew Shrine' - online at: http://members.vienna.at/shrew/cult-poison.html [accessed Aug 2014].
4 - The poison is a paralysing organic peptide called Soricidin - see Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soricidin [accessed Aug 2014].
5 - Topsell, E. 1658: History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents; London; p.406. Online at: https://archive.org/details/historyoffourfoo00tops [accessed Sept 2014].
6 - Rzebik-Kowalska, B. 1998. Fossil history of shrews inEurope . In: J. Wojcik, J. & Wolsan, M. (eds.): Evolution of shrews; Mammal Research Institute, Polish Academy
7 - Schreve, D.C. 2000: The Vertebrate Assemblage from Hoxne, Suffolk. In: Lewis, S.G. et al (eds) 2000: The Quaternary of Norfolk and Suffolk Field Guide; Quaternary Research Association.
8 - Polly, D.P. 2003 - Paleophylogeography of Sorex araneus (Insectivora, Soricidae): molar shape as a morphological marker for fossil shrews; Mammalia 68.2.
9 - Borodin, P.M. et al 2008: Recombination Map of the Common Shrew, Sorex araneus (Eulipotyphla, Mammalia); Genetics 178.2 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2248351/ [accessed August 2014]
10 -Taberlet, P. et al 1994: Chromosomal versus mitochondrial DNA evolution: tracking the evolutionary history of the southwestern European populations of the Sorex araneus group (Mammalia, Insectivora); Evolution, 48.3
11 - Wojcik, J.M. 1991: Chromosomal polymorphism in the common shrew Sorex araneus and its adaptive significance; Mémoires de la Société Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles, no.19.
12 - Searle, J.B. & Wilkinson, P.J. 1987: Karyotypic variation in the common shrew (Sorex araneus) in Britain – a 'Celtic Fringe'; Heredity, no.59.
13 - Crowcroft, P. 1963: Shrews; Animals of Britain Series no.17, Sunday Times Publications, London.
14 - Churchfield, S. 1988: Shrews of the British Isles; Shire Natural History, Princes Risborough.
15 - Wood, J.G. 1865: The Illustrated Natural History. Mammalia; George Routledge & Sons, London; p.434.
16 - Topsell, E. 1607: The History of Four-footed Beasts.
Today I took the opportunity to do some desk work out of doors, sitting on the terrace by the front door and proof-reading a book for a friend. Leaves were brushing the back of my neck from time to time as the wind stirred the vine there. It is a feature of the Bungalow garden: climbing up to the eaves and muffling the front of the house with a bright green jungle of stalks and questing tendrils.
The roof comes down to head height beside the front door. Twenty years ago we had a nest of hornets there. They were no bother - we saw them coming and going: they saw us doing the same; one of them was always on guard by the door to greet returning nest-mates and keep a weather eye open on the world; low-frequency murmurings heard at night, like Spitfires warming up on a distant aerodrome. I heard something different up there last week: a conversational twittering, scratchy and sporadic, like the sound of bats - or pixies. I could not quite locate the source: was it coming from a chimney stack or a hole in the tiles? I had a vision of furry faces swivelling about in the semi-darkness of the roofspace, discussing something important.
My reading was disturbed by rustling among the leaf litter under the vine. Nothing to be seen. A few minutes later the rustling came from higher up among the thicket of leaves. A quick movement, and there - silhouetted by sunlight crossing a branch in the heart of the leafage - unmistakably a shrew, climbing about, hunting and exploring; perhaps nervously taking its first foray out of the nest, its nose twitching about in frenetic hyper-mobility. The identity of my nattering neighbours became clear.
The locals call a shrew a 'ranny'. I'd like to think that the Latin name for a Common Shrew, Sorex araneus, owed something to the East Anglian dialect, or some obscure Viking root of it revived by Linnaeus who named them. Its name has another dimension for me: odour. It reminds me of the word 'rancid', and shrews have a reputation for smelling bad.
Shrews in my roof.... The twittering is apparently a 'low amplitude, broadband, multi-harmonic and frequency modulated' sound used as a form of echolocation [1]. Coupled with a rosette of stiff but sensitive whiskers around their snout and a good sense of smell, that must be how they they find their way around in the roof. Their eyesight is said to be poor. Judging by size, I think mine are most likely to be the Common Shrew rather than the Pygmy Shrew.
I have always thought of shrews as being members of the Order Insectivora, along with hedgehogs. However recent genetic studies have shown they are part of an Order Soricomorpha (''shrew-forms') which they share with moles and a rare family from the West Indies called the solenodons. The latter are living fossils, with relatives dating back to Cretaceous times, over 65 million years ago, and teeth which can deliver a poisonous bite like a snake. Other shrews, including the Common Shrew, are said to have a poisonous bite, but this is due to a toxin present in the saliva [2, 3, 4]. 'It is a ravening beast, feigning itself gentle and tame, but being touched it biteth deep, and poysoneth deadly', says Topsell [5]. I have not yet tested the truth of this.
There is something primaeval about this animal. How old is the species Sorex araneus? Scientists have traced shrew origins back to the Heterosoricidae, a family living in North America in Middle Eocene times, about 45 million years ago; behind them must lie some ranny-like Cretaceous mammal, as yet unknown. Later, the Soricinae family evolved, to which my Sorex shrews belong, and the earliest fossils of the genus are found in Germany, in the Middle Miocene, c.11 million years ago [6]. The earliest likely British record for S.araneus is from Hoxne, Suffolk, dated 400,000 BP [7]. The site is no more than two miles away from my house as the crow flies, and only yesterday in geological time. The species itself is not quite as ancient as I had imagined.
Strange to tell, shrews are one of the most studied animals on the planet. S.araneus is one of the few species whose genome has been completely mapped, and as a result we are able to carry out detailed studies of its subspecies and their distribution in time and space. Some surprising results have emerged. 30 years ago we thought it was just one species, but it now turns out to be five cryptic species, each with distinctive genetic signatures which directly contradict their apparent similarities in size, skeleton and bodily appearance [8]. Externally the look the same, but internally S.araneus is 'characterised by spectacular chromosomal variation' [8], and shows 'one of the most spectacular chromosomal evolutions ever recorded in mammals' [10]; it has evolved an extraordinary wealth of chromosomal races (karyotypes).
Since 1987 S.araneus has been the subject of a specialist research group called the International Sorex Araneus Cytogenetics Committee. Through the work of Jeremy Searle and others, it has been possible to divide the British population into six racial types and plot their geographies; from this we can work out the story of how the Common Shrew recolonised Britain after the last Ice Age, having spent it sheltering in a refugium area on the Continent, most likely in central Europe [8]. Some of the genetic diversity within the species seems to have adaptive value, as slightly different karyotypes are found in different habitats, for example shrews in bogs are different from those in dry grasslands [11]. Apparently shrews are a rapidly evolving species, and this helps adapt them to changing ecological niches and ultimately leads to the evolution of subspecies and - on a much longer time scale - species. I have no idea which race my shrews belong to, but quite possibly they are of the Oxford race discovered by Searle which is typical of Eastern England [12]. It now seems likely the fossil S.araneus from Hoxne is one of the cryptic subspecies. David Polly's research holds out the hope that we may eventually be able to tell them apart by the details of their molar teeth [8]. There is a lot more to shrews than meets the eye.
Tonight I saw one climb straight up a brick wall and disappear under the eaves. They are evidently bold and enterprising animals. They are also fevered and vulnerable beings, who live with death as a constant companion. Shrews have an incredibly fast metabolism, and when frightened their heart rate can shoot up to over 1200 beats per minute [13]; their digestion lives on a two-hour turnaround, so if they go without food for more than a few hours they will starve and quickly die [14]. I imagine they suffer greatly, passing their short and passionate lives in a ferment of hunger and competition for food and living space. I have often heard them shrieking at each other, hidden deep in the undergrowth of some grassy forest - 'a rapid succession of shrill cries, which pierce the ears like needles of sound' [15]. Gladiatorial screams of defiance, triumph and submission! If I wanted to tame one I would have to bring it offerings of woodlice, beetles and spiders, and promise to keep it in solitude. 'They love the rotten flesh of ravens', says Topsell, but I think I'd have to draw the line there.
 |
| From Topsell, 1658. |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soricidae#Echolocation.
2 - Buczacki, S. 2002: Fauna Britannica; Hamlyn.
3 - Poisonous Shrews, at: Shrew Culture, Myths, Stories and Poisonous Facts; The Shrew (ist's) Site aka 'The Shrew Shrine' - online at: http://members.vienna.at/shrew/cult-poison.html [accessed Aug 2014].
4 - The poison is a paralysing organic peptide called Soricidin - see Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soricidin [accessed Aug 2014].
5 - Topsell, E. 1658: History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents; London; p.406. Online at: https://archive.org/details/historyoffourfoo00tops [accessed Sept 2014].
6 - Rzebik-Kowalska, B. 1998. Fossil history of shrews in
7 - Schreve, D.C. 2000: The Vertebrate Assemblage from Hoxne, Suffolk. In: Lewis, S.G. et al (eds) 2000: The Quaternary of Norfolk and Suffolk Field Guide; Quaternary Research Association.
8 - Polly, D.P. 2003 - Paleophylogeography of Sorex araneus (Insectivora, Soricidae): molar shape as a morphological marker for fossil shrews; Mammalia 68.2.
9 - Borodin, P.M. et al 2008: Recombination Map of the Common Shrew, Sorex araneus (Eulipotyphla, Mammalia); Genetics 178.2 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2248351/ [accessed August 2014]
10 -Taberlet, P. et al 1994: Chromosomal versus mitochondrial DNA evolution: tracking the evolutionary history of the southwestern European populations of the Sorex araneus group (Mammalia, Insectivora); Evolution, 48.3
11 - Wojcik, J.M. 1991: Chromosomal polymorphism in the common shrew Sorex araneus and its adaptive significance; Mémoires de la Société Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles, no.19.
12 - Searle, J.B. & Wilkinson, P.J. 1987: Karyotypic variation in the common shrew (Sorex araneus) in Britain – a 'Celtic Fringe'; Heredity, no.59.
13 - Crowcroft, P. 1963: Shrews; Animals of Britain Series no.17, Sunday Times Publications, London.
14 - Churchfield, S. 1988: Shrews of the British Isles; Shire Natural History, Princes Risborough.
15 - Wood, J.G. 1865: The Illustrated Natural History. Mammalia; George Routledge & Sons, London; p.434.
16 - Topsell, E. 1607: The History of Four-footed Beasts.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)