THE FISHERY INTERESTS OP AUSTRIA. 651 



As the middle of running waters is usually considered the boundary- 

 line between villages and townships, judicial and manorial districts, as 

 well as between private properties, and as fishing-privileges usually 

 belong to one of the above mentioned divisions, it is easily explained 

 why numerous grants of this kind in all provinces only extend to the 

 middle of a stream, while other parties have the right to fish in the 

 other half. 



In some provinces there are so-called alternate fisheries, in which the 

 right to fish successively passes from one person to another at certain 

 stated periods, usually one year. 



Many fishing-privileges of different kinds are connected with mills 

 and other water-works; such grants being mostly limited to mill-dams 

 or to running water as far as a hammer can be thrown both up and 

 down the stream, a custom evidently a remnant of the Middle Ages. 



Fishing is sometimes an independent right, recorded in the law-books 

 as a special grant ; sometimes a right connected with some other privi- 

 leges, or a right which may be sold, and as such entered on the public 

 records. In some parts of the country, the fishing- waters are entirely 

 free as they were in the Middle Ages; in others, they are the co-mmou 

 property of communities ; in the former, any one may fish, and in the 

 latter, all citizens of the community. As the old limitations for such 

 waters, such as that of* fishing on certain days of the week and the use 

 of prescribed fishing-implements, have been abolished, such waters have 

 been recklessly plundered, and have consequently been almost depopu- 

 lated. 



In many lakes of Upper Austria, the fishing-privileges are very 

 ancient, and entered on the oldest documents, which prove how carefully 

 such rights were maintained in the olden times. In later times, how- 

 ever, we hear of complaints that these rights were no longer properly 

 respected; that irregularities began to occur; and that at present the 

 actual possession no longer tallies with the long neglected books ; and 

 that there is a universal desire to have order restored. 



The question whether courts of law or the executive officers have to 

 decide on fishing-privileges has, for a long time, been in practice answered 

 in different ways. The ministry of the interior and the ministry of 

 agriculture, to which all matters pertaining to the fisheries have been 

 referred, have repeatedly decided that, in accordance with existing laws, 

 the ultimate decision regarding the title to, and the possession of, waters, 

 and the legal and actual possession of rights to fish in waters not one's 

 own, wherever such matters do not come within the jurisdiction of the 

 authorities appointed for regulating the buying-off of privileges, should 

 rest with the courts. 



The regulations regarding fishing are, in the older laws, usually com- 

 bined with those regarding fishing-privileges. Most of these laws only 

 relate to one province, and frequently only to one lake or stream. 



Several river police-regulations also contain paragraphs on fishing ; 



