THE FISHERY INTERESTS OF AUSTRIA. 653 



lessees do not allow regular fisheries to be carried on. As an example, 

 we mention those in the river Ybbs. 



In this river, which once possessed a great wealth of fish., the right to 

 catch on one bank belongs to the domain of Waidhofeu, which rents it 

 to numerous small lessees, while on the other bank it belongs to several 

 peasants. All this does more harm to the fisheries than the floating of 

 lumber in long rafts, recently introduced in the Ybbs, which, in some 

 places, turn up the ground, and which, in the upper portions of the river, 

 are moved by a rapid stream of Water, which has been dammed up and 

 suddenly let loose. 



On account of the greater economical value of the lumber-trade, these 

 evils have to be borne; if the fishing privileges, however, were better 

 regulated, the protected portions of the Ybbs and its tributaries might 

 still contain a reasonable number of fish. 



Salzburg is an example of a most fully-developed royal fishing-pre- 

 rogative. Even here the privileges were in olden times considered 

 as being an essential portion of landed possessions, and were in the 

 oldest deeds of transfer of real estate given over to the new proprietor, 

 with all other water-rights as part and parcel of the property, as is 

 shown by the usual form of such documents: " una cum campis, silvis, 

 acquis acquarumque decursibus.- In the lakes, however, there existed, 

 even in the oldest times, special fishing-privileges, so-called segence, as 

 in other provinces. 



As in Salzburg the game and forest prerogatives of the archbishops 

 have been established since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the 

 fisheries were in nearly all places included in these prerogatives and 

 declared as such in the law-books, particularly in thearchiepiscopal fish- 

 ing-law. 



The Salzburg fisheries were therefore organized in the following man- 

 ner. There were : 



1. Archiepiscopal lakes, or kitchen-lakes, in which no one was allowed 

 to fish except the specially appointed court-fishers, who had to sell 

 their stock, for a certain stipulated price, to the archiepiscopal kitchen. 

 These were the Fuschel, Hinter, Tappenkar, and the Little Ael Lakes, 

 likewise the Abbot Lake in Bavaria. 



2. Lakes with hereditary leases, the Zeller, Matt, Waller, and Aber 

 Lakes, and the Waginger Lake in Bavaria. In some of these the leases 

 were given by the archbishop, some by the cathedral chapter, by other 

 chapters, domains, &c. 



On the After, Moncl, Irr, and Zeller Lakes, in the neighboring prov- 

 ince of Upper Austria, the archbishop likewise possessed some fishing- 

 privileges. 



3. The fisheries in the streams and rivers of Salzach were either under 

 the protection of the archbishop, and given to specially appointed fish- 

 ermen in exchange for a certain amount of fish and money, which helped 

 to suppy the court kitchen, or they were rented out annually for a cer- 



