172 THE SALMON. 



if the Commissioners were left free to fix any other 

 hours ? In every district the Commissioners will doubt- 

 less have it represented to them that some fisheries would 

 be greatly benefited by the thirty-six hours being made 

 to begin at noon on Saturday and terminate at midnight 

 of Sunday, thus giving them the advantage of the dark 

 hours of Monday morning. But just as certainly they 

 will find that the arrangement which benefits those 

 fisheries will proportionally injure others in the same 

 district. On what principle are the Commissioners to 

 decide, and on what principle were they asked to decide 

 at all ? What the Commissioners have done so far is to 

 refuse, in the case of river or net-and-coble fishings, any 

 variation of the hours from six to six ; but in the case 

 of stake and fly nets (not of bag-nets, which can be 

 reached at all states of the tide), the weekly close-time, 

 if the proprietors so desire, has been made to run from 

 the hour of low-water nearest six on Saturday night to 

 the hour of low-water nearest six on Monday morning. 



The Act also efiects several other beneficial changes. 

 It prohibits fishing with lights, but, obviously by acci- 

 dent, omits to prohibit the use of the leister also during 

 the day, as do the English and Tweed Acts. It prohibits 

 the sale and use of salmon roe, which had formed a large 

 portion of the remuneration of the poachers, and renders 

 illegal fishing by three or more persons at night a criminal 

 ofl*ence. 



In short, the new Scotch law deals more or less 

 satisfactorily with all the parts of the question, except 

 the great evil and difficulty of fixed engines, and that 

 difficulty will now be the more easily dealt with when 



