OYSTER FISHERY LEGISLATION. 999 



If the proposed area belongs to the Crown personally 

 or to the Duchies of Lancaster or Cornwall, the consent of 

 the Woods' Commissioners, or of the Chancellor of Lan- 

 caster, or the Duke of Cornwall respectively, must be first 

 obtained ; whilst any shore landowners may claim com- 

 pensation under the Lands Clauses Acts. The orders 

 further will not abridge a private fishery granted by a local 

 Act, or by Royal grant, or immemorial usage, such as are 

 frequently weirs. To afford publicity throughout the 

 district, the Third Part of the Fisheries Act, together 

 with the order itself, and the subsequent Act confirming 

 the order, must be sold by the grantees to any applicant 

 for sixpence, and the Board of Trade is to report annually 

 to Parliament upon the working of the grants it allows. 



For judicial purposes, the area of the grant is held to 

 be in the county to which it is opposite ; and if only the 

 bed is properly marked out, all oysters in it are held to be 

 the property of the grantees. This must be noted as a 

 restriction on title by " occupancy'' fkj which prevails in 

 regard to almost all other sea-fish. He who is first to catch 

 a herring is the only lawful owner of it, but it is as illegal 



(K) The title to fish when caught is acquired by what in the civil 

 law was called occupatio, or, in other words, by the mere taking pos- 

 session of those things which before did not belong to anybody. 

 English law has borrowed but little from Roman law ; title by occu- 

 pancy in respect of sea-fish is, however, distinctly acknowledged, and 

 the dictum of Gaius has prevailed to the present day. "Itaque si 

 feram bestiam aut volucrem aut piscem ceperimus, quidquid ita captum 

 fuerit, id statim nostrum fit, et eo nostrum esse intellegitur, donee 

 nostra custodia coerceatur : cum vero custodiam nostram evaserit et in 

 naturalem libertatem se receperit rursus occupantis fit" (Gaii Institu- 

 tiones, lib. ii., 67). Relations of the State with Fishermen and 

 Fisheries, &c. By F. J. Talfourd Chater. 



