202 THE LAWS OF ANGLING. 



need only apply it to the ease of the water in a 

 river; which is so constantly passing from the 

 soil of one to another, that no man can, in strict- 

 ness, be said to go twice to the same river ; and 

 yet, by a grant of any quantity of land covered 

 with water, which is the only legal designation of 

 a river, not only a certain tract of the river, but 

 the fish contained in it, shall pass. See Coke on 

 Littleton, 4, a. 



In the Register, a very ancient law book, we 

 find two writs relating to fish : the one, for the 

 unlawful taking of fish in a several fishery, and 

 the other, in a free fishery. And of these in their 

 order. 



A several fishery is that which a man is en- 

 titled to in respect of his being the owner of the 

 soil, and is what no one can have in the land of 

 another, unless by special grant or prescription ; 

 and whoever shall fish in such a several fishery, 

 without a licence, is liable to an action of trespass, 

 in which the plaintiff" may well demand " where- 

 fore, in the plaintiff*'s several fishery, the defen- 

 dant was fishing, and his fishes took," &c., for 

 though the fish be fera naturd, yet being taken 

 in the water of the owner of the river, they are 

 said to be his fish, without saying in his soil, or 



