All the waste ground
not covered by the water or filtering-beds produced quantities of
brilliant flowers, as waste ground enclosed and left to itself generally
does. The banks and broad walks between the lakes were sown with good
grass, which was regularly made into hay. The reservoirs themselves soon
filled with fish, which came down the mains from Hampton, where the water
is taken in from the river. What these reservoir fish found to live upon
at first is not clear. No weeds are allowed to grow either in the water or
on the banks, which are concreted. But the bottom becomes covered with the
suspended matter deposited from the unfiltered water, and probably a
considerable number of the minute _entomostraca_ beloved of all fish
breed in this. The Barnes reservoirs do contain a growth of weed, which is
carefully removed every year. Whatever their sustenance may be, these
reservoirs are very full of fish, both the old ones at Barnes and the new
lakes near Ranelagh. The supply of fish, and the open and strictly private
extent of water, then attracted a number of wild duck or water birds of
some kind, which the writer was invited to see and identify, as it did not
seem probable that they could be the ordinary wild duck, which are
vegetable feeders, and would need an artificial supply of grain, which is
provided on the Serpentine, but is not given to any of these reservoir
ducks.
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