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destroyed in' spawning time, and their young fry when descend-ing to the sea. * Some of these are sufficiently severe; the actof 1503 makes the penalty for the first offence 10/. Scotch, forthe second 20/., and for the third death: arbitrary corporal pu-nishment is, however, remitted in the latest enactments. Thereare also various acts and re-enactments, to prevent the intercepttion, at the inferior parts of rivers, of the salmon in their ascent:As, that a mid-stream shall always be kept free of obstruction,the open passage being so wide that a swine of three years old,well fed, may turn himself round within it, (stat- Alex. II.)—aspace defined, in subsequent statutes, to be six feet; that a slopeshall be kept open in cruives on Saturdays, and that no salmonhe taken from Saturday, after evening song, till Monday at sun-rise. Enactments also appear, authorising the destruction of allcruives, yairs, and other instruments of interception, that are setof late, or where the charter of the adjacent lands do not containexpress enfenfmcnt of salmon-fishing. So that the right of salmon-fishing, and the mode in which that right is to be exercised or li-mited, is to be interpreted, partly from consuetude, and partlyfrom written record.
There has not occurred a more fertile subject of litigation thanthe right of salmon fishing. And the right to fish, and the modeof fishing competent to each proprietor, whose lands comprehend,or are bounded by the river, has had to be ascertained by as manydistinct separate law processes, in regard to almost all the Scots salmon-fishing rivers, j-
Herring Fishery erf the Hebrides , and Western Coasts.
The herring fishery, on the western coasts of Scotland lias al-ways been considered as of more importance than that of salmon;by some, indeed, as something incalculably great. It has, how-ever, never yet realized, in the most trifling degree, those expect-ations that have been formed from it.
As a subject of common right, unfit for individual appropria-tion, the joint use would seem to stand in much need of a systemof well enforced regulations, to prevent the abuse of the subject,and the mutual interference and interruption of the occupiers. Itis complained, that the too eager haste to attack the herring shoalsbefore they have completely entered the lochs, and the ruinous
* Irrigation was found, or reasonably apprehended, to be destructive to thesalmon of the river Tweed. In tile numerous water-meadows formed upon theaules of rivulets running into that river, in the Duke of Buccleurh’s lands, ityas found that the salmon fry, in their passage down to the sea, often enteredlnt0 Ihe main feeders, and passed on by the smaller feeders, till they were leftentangled and exposed among the grass on the panes, where they were devouredny the fowls. Upon a representation to his Grace, tirlaces of wore were placed^upon the mouths of the main feeders, to prevent them from entering.
f Hutcheson’s Justice of the Trace.