These regulations show that the institution of swans on the Thames is a very ancient one, and the graceful, bad-tempered birds themselves add much to the beauty of the river. The swan with arched neck Between her white wings mantling, proudly rows Her state with oary feet. --_Milton._ To light upon another subject. There is in the boating alone enough to occupy many volumes. We might start from the solid punt, furnished with chairs, and shoved out into midstream by three sober snuff-coloured gentlemen; there anchored by its own poles, while the three sit on their chairs in midstream, regardless of the obstruction they form to quicker nimbler mortals, fishing, or rather holding rods, as immovable as themselves, the livelong day. The punt plays such a small part in the whole proceeding, it might well fall outside the boating classification altogether--a mud island would do as well. It has not even the dignity of a ferry boat. From here, through all varieties of broad-beamed, blunt-nosed family boats, to the long slender racing skiffs or the canoe light as a dragon-fly on the wing, we could run the gamut in the Book of the Boat. The distance between Hammersmith Bridge and Folly Bridge, Oxford, is 103 miles, and the extent and variety of boating on this stretch, to go no lower, is unequalled on any other river in England. The first weir is to be found below Richmond, and the first lock at Teddington. In 1578 there were 23 locks, 16 mills, 16 floodgates, and 7 weirs on the river between Maidenhead and Oxford. Thirty more locks and weirs were added in the next six years. When we find that "the locks were machines of wood placed across the river, and so contrived to hold the water as long as convenient, that is, till the water rises to such a height as to allow of depth enough for the barge to pass over the shallows", we are not surprised to learn that exception was taken to the building of more locks, because so many people had been drowned! The barges were not charged for going up, but only for coming down, which seems a little unreasonable when we realize that "the going up of the locks was so steep that every year cables had been broken that cost £400".