128 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 



slaughter of gravid fish all through the back end of 

 the season — the very fish we depend upon for the 

 occupation of the spawning beds during the forth- 

 coming spawning season ? To convict in one case 

 and not in the other is most unjust. The following 

 is a report of another case in which the question 

 was raised by defendants' solicitor as to the inter- 

 pretation of the word " unseasonable " : — 



A Nice Point in the Salmon Fishery Law. — The county 

 magistrates, sitting at Barnstaple Police Court, Avere on Wednes- 

 day called on to decide a somewhat novel point, raised in the 

 interpretation of the Salmon Fishery Acts. Five fishermen, of 

 Barnstaple, were summoned for having taken an unseasonable 

 salmon on April 24th, at Heanton Punchardon, the Taw and 

 Torridge Fishery Commissioners being the prosecutors. It 

 appears that the defendants were seen to catch a salmon in their 

 net on April 24th, during the close season^ and put it into a bag, 

 but on finding they were observed they threw it back into the 

 river. Mr. Bencraft, in defence, raised this point — that, under 

 the section of the Act, it rested with the prosecution to show that 

 the fish was an unclean one, and this they had failed to do. The 

 Act did not make it an offence to be in possession of a clean fish 

 at any time, but it was an offence to have an " unseasonable " 

 salmon during the close time. The word " unseasonable " meant 

 " unclean," which was the ordinary meaning of the word, and it 

 did not in this Act mean a salmon which was clean and caught 

 during a close season. The defendants' solicitor then went on 



