112 THE OPEN AIR 



THE MODERN THAMES. 



I. 



THE wild red deer can never again come down to drink 

 at the Thames in the dusk of the evening as once 

 they did. While modern civilization endures, the 

 larger fauna must necessarily be confined, to parks 

 or restrained to well-marked districts ; but for that 

 very reason the lesser creatures of the wood, the field, 

 and the river should receive the more protection. If 

 this applies to the secluded country, far from the stir 

 of cities, still more does it apply to the neighbourhood 

 of London. From a sportsman's point of view, or from 

 that of a naturalist, the state of the river is one of 

 chaos. There is no order. The Thames appears free 

 even from the usual rules which are in force upon 

 every highway. A man may not fire a gun within a 

 certain distance of a road under a penalty a law 

 enacted for the safety of passengers, who were formerly 

 endangered by persons shooting small birds along the 

 hedges bordering roads. Nor may he shoot at all, 

 not so much as fire off a pistol (as recently publicly 

 proclaimed by the Metropolitan police to restrain the 

 use of revolvers), without a licence. But on the river 

 people do as they choose, and there does not seem to 



