132 SALMONID^ OF BRITAIN. 



farther Act was therefore passed in 184<i, 7 and 8 Victoria, c. 95, wherein whitlings 

 were specially mentioned. 



The Tweed Act of 1857 seems to have inaugurated a new era in the Scottish 

 salmon fisheries, fixed nets were abolished in estuaries and rivers where they had 

 existed more or less for centuries, but the legality of those on the foi-e-shore which 

 have sprung into existence during the present century were not legislated upon. 

 Leistering or spearing was prohil^ited, a weekly close time was enacted, and the 

 mesh of salmon nets fixed at not less than If in. between knot and knot. The 

 period of time and the distance to be observed between the working of nets was 

 likewise laid down, while the killing of foul fish was totally prohibited. 



In 1862, an Act was passed which was directed among other things against 

 fixed engines, taking care that nothing in the Act should be held to legalize any 

 mode of fishing which had previously been illegal. It formed districts, and 

 appointed Commissioners to lay down all boundaries and local regulations, it fixed 

 168 days for the annual close time, 36 hours for the weekly close time. It imposed 

 penalties for various oifences, and extended the English Act of 1861 as to fixed 

 engines, to the Solway after January 1st, 1865 (but which has not yet been carried 

 out) . This Act does not apply to the Tweed except in three of its sections, illegal 

 fishing (saving clause), possession of salmon roe, and poaching by three or more 

 persons at night-time. But no clause was added repealing old Acts relating to 

 salmon fishing, and some as ancient as 400 years are still in force, causing the law 

 to be very complicated. 



In 1868 this Act was amended and added to : certain modes of fishing were 

 prohibited in the conjoined Acts,* also the construction and use of cruives, the 

 building and alteration of mill-dams or lades, or water wheels, the size of the 

 mesh of nets. There were penalties for taking, possessing, or dealing in unclean 

 salmon, and the removal of boats or other engines during the annual close time. 

 In 1882 an Act was passed establishing a Fishery Board for Scotland, and an 

 Inspector of Salmon Fisheries was appointed. 



About the commencement of this century, the fixed-net fishermen began to 

 erect their stake- and fly-nets along the sea- shore and at the entrance to rivers, 

 with probably about equal right to that of manufacturers who have made streams 

 sewers to drain off their deleterious refuse. These nets have been considered 

 to have been at first erected against both the spirit and letter of the existing 

 statutes, and do not appear to have been legalized by prescription as their 

 proprietors now claim them to be. Anyhow, they are cavising great injury to the 

 river fisheries directly, irrespectively of what they are causing indirectly by 

 capturing such an amount of fish, that some of the upper proprietors do not see 

 any fish until the nets are oif. If they were under more strict control, both as to 

 their position, their size and extent, and their times of fishing, it is jjrobable that 

 the rivers would be better stocked than they at j)resent are. 



The legal dates for commencing to fish in the Scottish rivers in 1887 were as 

 follows :— Thurso, for rods, January 11th to September 14th. — Tweed, for rods, 

 February 1st to November 30th ; nets, February 15th to September 14th. — Tay, 

 for rods, February 5th to October 10th ; nets, February 5th to August 21st. — 

 Aline, Alness, Annan, Applecross, Arnisdale, Awe, Aylort, Ayr, Baa, Badachro, 

 Balgay, Bcrriedale, Bladenoch, Broom, Brora, Carron, Clyde and Leven, 

 Conon, Cree, Creed (Stornoway), Creran, Crowe, Deo (Aberdeenshire), Dee 

 (Kirkcudbright), Deveron, Don, Doon, Ewe, Fleet (Sutherlandshire), Forth, 

 Forss, Glenelg, Gour, Greiss, Grudie, Gruinard, Halladale, Helmsdale, Hope and 

 Polla, Inchard, Inver, Kennart, Kilchoan, Kinloch, Kirkaig, Kishorn, Laxford, 



* Mr. A. Young, British Industries, 1877, p. 232, observed of the conjoined Acts of 1862-68, 

 that " as these Acts at present stand, stake-nets and bag-nets may be placed far too near the 

 mouths of rivers ; there being at least twenty river with estuaries so fixed by the Commis- 

 sioners under the Acts of 1862, that such nets may be placed at distances varying from 400 to 

 150 yards from the mouth of the river on each side, measured from a point fixed in mid-channel. 

 . . . No fixed net should, in any case, be allowed to be placed nearer than half- a-mile from the 

 mouth of a salmon river." While in these Acts " there is no deliuitiou of what constitutes a 

 fixed engine," 



