In many of the upper waters, as at Henley and Reading, _salmo fario_ of the ordinary kind have been artificially hatched and turned into the river. Loch Leven trout have also been introduced, and one of the latest efforts at acclimatisation has been with Great Lake trout and land-locked salmon, sent to this country by the United States Fish Commission, and introduced to the Thames through the National Fish Culture Association and Thames Angling Preservation Society. Whether these interesting experiments in pisciculture will be attended with success time only will prove, but there can be no question that the number of common trout in the Thames have, of late, largely increased, though a greater proportion of small fish have, as might be supposed, been taken. The principal sport of the Thames, however, must be looked for in what are called the coarse or summer spawning fish, for whose advantage a close time has been instituted between the 15th of March and the 15th of June. The latter date is full early for many of the species. At the same time, the periods at which the fish get into condition after spawning depend so much upon the varying circumstances of the water that the angling public have been, reasonably enough, allowed to enjoy the benefit of any doubt that might have been entertained. The increasing number of steam-launches has in many ways interfered with the pursuit of angling, and the disciples of Izaac Walton entertain anything but a friendly feeling towards the frequenters of the Thames who take their pleasure in other ways than through fishing-rod or punt. The Thames fish have, indeed, many enemies to contend with, and angling in its waters with success becomes a more and more uncertain and difficult art every year. The fish that has deteriorated, most probably, from the introduction of the steam-launch is the pike. The Thames is not, naturally, except in a comparatively few reaches, and at the weirs and mill-pools, a trout stream; but it is precisely the water in which the voracious pike should flourish. The beds of reeds and rushes, the eyots, the deep holes under willow-lined banks, the long straight reaches down which the currents, "strong without rage," maintain their easy progress--these are the natural haunts of _Esox lucius_. But pike-fishing has suffered greatly on account of the pernicious and Cockney system of trailing from the stems of pleasure-boats and steam-launches. By the murderous flights of hooks, dragged in their wake, without any exercise of skill or attention on the part of the owners of the apparatus, infant fish, too often under the legal minimum of length, are taken. Any pike-fisher who is wise will, therefore, avoid the watery highways which are swept and harried by this legion of pot-hunters.