PECULIARILY, OF LAE SCOTCH LAW. 31 
Chancellor Chelmsford in a judicial decision,’ “that 
salmon fishings at an early period of the history of Scotland 
were regarded as possessing a peculiar value over other 
fishings and were distinguished from them in a remarkable 
manner. They were classed zxter regalia. They are only 
capable of belonging to a subject by an express grant from 
the Crown or by a grant of fishings generally, followed by 
such an user of salmon fishing as proved that it was intended 
to be comprehended within the general terms of the grant.” 
The use of stake nets and other fixed engines, therefore, 
which in England could seldom be practised as private right, 
and which, carried on by the public, was opposed to public 
rights at large, has always been recognized in Scotland, where 
all round the coast, and in the estuaries of the rivers, such 
engines exist, and form the most general mode of fishing for 
salmon. Itistrue that these engines have always been subject 
to more or less efficient legislative restrictions by which their 
destructive powers were to some extent kept in check. 
Indeed the old Scotch laws afford the earliest instance of 
a “weekly close season,” for in an Act passed about the 
year 1220 the following curious provision occurs for main- 
taining a free passage through cruives or dam-dykes :—“ It 
is statute and ordanit be King Alexander, at Perth, on 
Thursday, before feist of Sanct Margaret, with consent of 
the Erles, Barones, and Judges of Scotland, that the midst 
of the water sall be free, in sa mekill that ane swine of 
three zeares auld, and weil fed, may turn himself within it, 
in sic ane maner, that nather his grunzie nor his tail 
tuich any of the banks of the water. And it is statute that 
all wateris be fre, and that within tham na man sall slay 
fisch fra the Saturday efter the evin song, or evening 
prayeris, untill Monday efter the sone rysing.” But it 
2 Gammel v. Commissioners of Woods and Forests. 
