Natator #4: Diving off London Bridge April 3, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
From Natator’s defeat to the churlish Fish Man in the spring of 1871 it was all down hill, and the slope was steep and full of briars and stones: some readers might want to spare themselves the unhappy denoument and click away at this point. OK, well you’ve been warned. In June 1871, doubtless desperate […]
Natator #3: the Fight with Fish Man March 30, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
In a previous post Beach outlined the early success of Natator, the frog man and Frank Buckland’s examination of this unusual specimen. The next chapter in Natator’s life is though a more traumatic one. Acts inevitably get old and Natator recognised this. By September of 1867, just three months after he had begun, Natator […]
Natator 2#: Buckland Speaks March 29, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern Natator had no biographer: who would be equal to such a life! However, 10 August 1867 Frank Buckland the celebrated naturalist and son of a great British eccentric (who once ate a king’s heart) visited the Cremorne Gardens to examine Frog Man. We learn more from this account than from any other. First, the aquarium: […]
Natator 1#: Arrival of the Master! March 28, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
Nineteenth-century London. Three million human beings crammed into rookeries and tenements, villas and palaces and desperate for stimulation outside the normal run of work, gin and jellied eels. The theatres and music halls did their best, of course, but even the wildest cant, the heartiest acting, the prettiest legs quickly jade in the world capital. It was […]
