THE HISTORY OF • FISH-CULTURE. 467 



grounded complaints are raised against the poacliers upon fisheries: the 

 devastations have continued on all sides. 



The necessity has been felt, however, for a long time, of taking 

 repressive measures against the destruction of spawn, and the historians 

 of fishery have collected numerous ordinances, which have been succes- 

 sively issued with this view at different times and in different countries. 

 Without citing them all, it will be sufficient to recall those which have 

 had the greatest intiuence upon the legislation of the present time. In 

 the year 9G6, Ethelred II, king of the Anglo-Saxons, interdicted the 

 sale of young fishes. Malcolm II, in 1030, fixed the time of the year 

 Avhen the salmon-fishery should be permitted. Several other kings of 

 Scotland have confirmed these decrees. Under Eobert I, the willows of 

 the bow-nets were to be separated by at least two inches of interval, to 

 leave a passage for the young fry. In 1400, Robert III carried severity 

 so far as to punish capitally every person convicted of having taken a 

 salmon in the forbidden season. This cruel law was abolished by James 

 I, but this prince kept up the interdict during the same season, and 

 every infraction still remained the object of severe penalties. Tlie kings 

 of France were at great pains also to insure the free development of the 

 j-oung fishes. A great number of ordinances were issued by them, to 

 determine the nature of the nets of which the use should be permitted, 

 and the length of the fishes which might be sold in the market-places. 

 At lengh, in lGo9, Colbert i)laced upon a new footing the legislation of 

 the coasts and rivers. He prohibited river fishing during the night 

 and during the spawning season, under penalty of a fine of twenty livres 

 and a mouth's imprisonment for the first offense, of a fine double in 

 amount and two months' imprisonment for the second, and of the pil- 

 lory and the scourge for the third.' The only exceptions were in the 

 fisheries of salmon, shad, and lampreys. Colbert also prohibited the 

 placing of basket-wcrk at the end of the drag-nets during tlie spawning- 

 season, under penalty of twenty livres tine ; and after having determined 

 the kinds of snares to be forbidden, he directed that the fishermen should 

 return to the streams the trouts, carps, barbels, breams, and millers 

 which they should take having less than six inches between the eye and 

 the tail, and tlie tenches, perches, and mullets having less than five 

 inches, under a penalty of one hundred livres fine. 



The legislation wliich governs us at present is based upon the pre- 

 vious dispositions; unfortunately, it has disregarded the information 

 offered by natural history, and thus but imperfectly attains the object pro- 

 posed. The regulations relative to marine-fishing permit, for example, 

 the taking of a given fish on shores where it has never been found, and 

 give, for the limit of the Crustacea, indications contrary to the most sim- 

 ple common sense. The code of river-fishing, which principally interests 

 us here, is no better i)rotected against criticism. The ordinance of 

 ]S^ovember 15, 1830, supplementary to that of April 15, 1829, leaves to 

 the prefect of each department the care of determining, with the advice 



