12 



November ii, and the latter prohibited their capture in 

 the Severn, Wye, and most of the English rivers north of 

 the Dee and the Trent between July 31 and November 12. 

 As the object of a close season is to spare the breeding fish, 

 and as salmon do not certainly spawn in the rivers alluded 

 to at this time of year (July), and as they certainly do 

 spawn in the very period when their capture under these 

 Acts was allowed, it is very evident that the enactments 

 referred to were worse than useless ; and it is not surprising, 

 therefore, that in a later Act w^e find Parliament confessing 

 that the " time limited for restraining the taking of fish is 

 not properly suited or adapted to the fishing seasons so as 

 to answer the intentions of" the legislature. Such a mis- 

 take as this could not have occurred if the salmon fisheries 

 had been made the subject of systematic investigation 

 prior to legislation. 



Fortunately we do not live in quite so much darkness as 

 existed at the time these Acts were passed ; or, to take 

 another instance, at the time when an Act of the reign of 

 George II. based an enactment regulating the capture of 

 lobsters on the notion that, as the preamble of the Act 

 recites, "lobsters crawl close to the shore to leave their 

 spawn in the chinks of the rocks, and as much under the 

 influence of the sun as possible." 



But we need not go back to the beginning of last century 

 for examples of hasty legislation on imperfect information. 

 In 1809 a law was passed limiting the size of mesh for 

 herring-nets in Scotland to one inch. This law took no 

 cognizance of the fact that the one-inch net would not 

 catch the sprats, the fishery for which, in the Firth of Forth, 

 was closely associated with that for herrings ; and the in- 

 dustry of the sprat-fishers was consequently seriously 

 interfered with. When, in 185 1, all nets except drift-nets 



