26 
NATURE NOTES. 
In framing their bye-laws, it is to be hoped that Corporations 
and Urban District Councils will in future have regard for the 
greatest happiness of the greatest number of those visitors who 
add so much to the material prosperity of their towns, and will 
endeavour to place some restrictions on the annoyance caused 
by noisy and vulgar strolling actors, low-minded showmen, and 
would-be orators. Not only on bank-holidays (on which it 
might be excused), but daily throughout the summer do these 
offensive denizens of the metropolis or nearest great city, render 
the seaside a positive pandemonium to quiet and orderly visitors 
and residents. 
Better than the shore itself is a walk on the cliffs. Often 
enough there is no right of w'ay even at the ^•ery edge of the cliff, 
but wherever a coast-guard’s path exists the public can pass 
unhindered. “ The erection of stiles and gates across the path 
where it passes through walls and hedges is strong evidence of 
public right.” 
The question of right of way on rivers and lakes appeals 
chiefly to those who boat and sail. Running streams are not all 
common highways ; they are regarded as falling into three 
groups; (i) public navigable rivers where the tide ebbs and 
flows ; (2) public rivers above the ebb and flow of the tide ; (3) 
private rivers. In those of the first group the soil is held by the 
Crown, and the public have not only the right of navigating but 
of fishing in such streams. In the case of non-tidal rivers, the 
soil may belong to the Crown ; it is, however, generally vested 
in the riparian owners on each side, the middle of the bed mark- 
ing the dividing line of the properties. The right of passage 
belongs to the public, but fishing is not allowed to them. Lastly, 
there are private rivers on which there is no right of way. The 
river Mole in Surrey was obstructed a short distance above its 
confluence with the Thames. This was not complained of as 
illegal, but higher up the stream, from a mill-dam a little below 
Esher Bridge, up as far as Cobham Bridge, there was a consider- 
able reach fit for small boats and canoes. As a fact boating was 
largely pursued, but it had begun with the riparian proprietors 
who let out their boats secretly for what people cared to give. 
The mill-dam prevented any passage to and from the Thames in 
any case, putting aside the matter of the obstruction lower down, 
so the Court held that on the evidence there was no highway 
along the piece of river in question. 
In the present state of the law it is decided that the public 
have no right to fish without leave in non-tidal lakes or entirely 
inland lakes, but this is a matter of small importance when we 
reflect that navigation on them is now entirely unhindered. A 
visit to the lake district in the north of England would be robbed 
of half its charms if the richly wooded slopes of Windermere were 
never to be viewed from the water, or the stern beauty of 
llelvellyn. Red Pike, St. Sunday Crag, and other fells that 
crowd round the south-west end of Ullswater, was forbidden to- 
