640 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



"4. Change of the rules concerning 'cruives,'* and the dams and 

 weirs belonging thereto, within the district limits. 



"5. Changes regarding the establishment of mill-dams, aqueducts, 

 and water-wheels, the placing of heks or gratings, the closing of sluices 

 wherever they open into or from aqueducts within the limits of the dis- 

 trict ; provided that by such changes the supply of water to which persons 

 are entitled who have the right to use an existing salmon-dam as a 

 weir is not diminished. 



" The votes of the district-board deciding such changes must be pub- 

 lished in some paper of the district before they can be officially presented 

 to the minister. The minister may collect information on the subject; 

 and if the proposed change is not in opposition to any rights belonging 

 to persons by royal grant, privileges, or immemorial possession, the 

 minister shall consent to .the change and publish it in the Edinburgh 

 Gazette. 



"Until some change shall have been made, the regulations settled for 

 each district by the act of 1868 remain in force. 



"The district-board is empowered to buy, from the proprietors, dams, 

 weirs, cruives, and other stationary contrivances, whose removal they 

 consider necessary for the welfare of the fisheries ; heirs of entailed 

 estates are likewise entitled to conclude such transactions with the dis- 

 trict-board, even without the consent of their guardians. 



"The district-board is also empowered to remove every natural 

 hinderance in the bed of a river which might impede the passage of fish ; 

 to make fish-passes near the water-falls ; to take all the measures and 

 meet all the expenses which in their opinion appear necessary for the 

 protection or improvement of the fisheries in the district, as well as for 

 stocking the waters with fish. 



" The above-mentioned right of buying weirs, &c, can only be applied 

 if the resolution of the district-board relating thereto has the sanction 

 of the owners of four-fifths of the total value of the district fisheries. 



" The members of the district-board shall not receive any salary or 

 fee. 



" The board is empowered, with the consent of the minister, to con- 

 tract loans for carrying into effect the above regulations ; such loans not 

 to be made for any period exceeding two years. 



"A fine, not to exceed $25, is to be imposed on any person who fishes 

 during the yearly or weekly season of protection, or assists in fishing, 

 or violates a law relating to the season of protection, or uses nets with 

 too narrow meshes, or catches salmon as they leap over a water-fall or 

 some other impediment, or keeps them back after the leap, or prevents 

 salmon from going through fish-passes, or catches them in such passes, 

 or throws sawdust, chaff, or corn husks into fishing waters, or causes it 

 to be thrown into it. For every salmon caught or killed contrary to 



* A cruive is an inclosed space in a dam-wall, so contrived that when the fish enter 

 it in their passage up stream they cannot escape. — S. F. B. 



