22 
NATURE NOTES 
prohibitive laws would be useless unless there were persons 
on the spot interested in enforcing them. The Crown would 
probably not be concerned even to check trespassers. A com- 
munication from the War Office has not yet been received, but 
has been promised. Mr. Thomas Whitburn, the promoter of 
the scheme, has been good enough to say that he will send 
particulars when the decision reaches him. Miss Edith Temple, 
who has given us information on the subject, does not regard 
the Queen’s soldiers as dangerous. She thinks that the military 
manoeuvres are harmless, but has a different opinion about the 
practices of the lessees of the sporting rights. 
The Thames as a Salmon River. — We have received from 
Mr. George Rooper, of Nascott House, Watford, the following 
letter on this subject : — “ The two causes to which you attribute 
the absence of salmon in the Thames — obstruction and pollution 
— are doubtless potent factors, but a far more fatal obstacle 
exists in the presence of the ravenous pike, which abound in 
every pool, from the source to Richmond. Assuming the spawn 
deposited and the parr hatched, the smolts must remain in the 
weir for a year before, putting on their silvery coats, they 
depart for the sea. What chance would they have of escaping 
the myriads of pike, hungry and expectant, that occupy the 
whole water through which they must pass? None at all ! not 
one smolt in ten thousand would ever reach the sea, and, if any 
did, could never return to replenish the water. The fact is that 
the Thames never was a ‘ Salmon River,’ properly so called. 
The records even of the old time, when pike lately introduced 
were very scarce, are miserably poor — sixty or eighty are 
recorded as taken in a year, less than a fifth of the number taken 
in an ordinary haul. The reason is obvious. There are no 
spawning beds in the upper waters of the Thames, and salmon 
invariably seek these upper waters to spawn in. There are 
some fine gravel beds about Shepperton, but 1 know of none 
higher up, and above Oxford all is clay. My dear old friend, 
Frank Buckland, was wild to make a ‘ Salmon River ’ of the 
Thames, and for many years sacrificed five or six thousand parr 
in the laudable but fruitless attempt.” The Thames may not 
be naturally an ideal salmon river, but the small takes referred 
to by Mr. Rooper were in comparatively recent times. Earlier 
notices indicate a good supply. 
The New Forest. — It is believed that the proposed New 
Forest Bill has been dropped. It must be stated that some 
local Selbornians of credit did not regard the bill with anxiety, 
nor expect, as a likely consequence of its enactment, damage 
to the natural beauties or interference with the wild life of the 
forest. There may, no doubt, be places within the whole 
property of the Crown known as the New Forest, where public 
