What the steam-launcher, however, loses is gained by the angler. This mild sportsman I found to be very much in evidence below Bablock Hythe. Here at any rate he was able to pursue his pastime in peace; and the frequency with which he appeared on the bank from Eynsham downwards gives me an opportunity of interjecting a few timely remarks upon the Thames as a resort of fishermen. The professional fisherman, as we know him at Richmond, Maidenhead, or Marlow, with his punt, Windsor chair, and ground-bait, is unknown in the upper reaches of the river; but the fish are there. Although anglers have multiplied a hundredfold within the last half-century, the angling in the River Thames at the present moment is better than it has been at any time during the present generation. It is not to be hoped, with any reasonable confidence, that the efforts now being made by the Thames Angling Preservation Society to convert the Thames once more into a salmon river will be successful; and any one who makes personal acquaintance with the source of the Thames, and marks the character of the contributory streams, will be prudent in entertaining a doubt as to whether there are now breeding-grounds suitable, even if fish could be induced once more to run up through the filth of the Pool from the sea. The alleged scarcity of Thames trout is very often put down to the excessive disturbance caused by steam-launches, and the traffic by pleasure-boats upon all the reaches of the Thames, from Teddington Lock to Oxford. It is somewhat strange, therefore, that the higher you ascend the Thames the fewer become the Thames trout. There are a few large fish in most of the deep wide pieces that were once weir-pools, or that still may be so, between Lechlade and Oxford; but the water is too sluggish to encourage them much, and trout, with the exception of truants from Lech, Coin, or Windrush, are, therefore, few and far between. Pike, on the other hand, are more numerous, if not of so large an average size as those caught lower down. The Thames, from the start, abounds in chub, bleak, barbel, gudgeon, roach, dace, and perch; bream, carp, and tench are partial in their haunts. But the river above Oxford is not so accessible as the great body of modern anglers would require, and hence it comes to pass that these remote waters are little visited except by the local disciples of Isaac Walton. The weeds are, after a fashion, annually cut by the Thames Conservancy where their growth would be a serious hindrance, but otherwise they are not kept down, save by the uncertain operations of winter frosts and floods. The right of fishing is generally, above Oxford, claimed by the riparian proprietors, or their tenants. [Illustration: THE THAMES FROM LECHLADE TO OXFORD.]