BY SIR JOHN HAWKINS. 201 



in most instances fish belong to the owner of the 

 soil. 



These principles being recognized, and pro- 

 perty once settled, it is easy to see the necessity 

 and the justice of fencing it with positive laws. 

 Accordingly, in this country, judicial determina- 

 tions have, from time to time, been made, ascer- 

 taining the rights of persons to fisheries; and 

 these, together with the several statutes enacted 

 to prevent the destruction of fish, compose the 

 body of laws relating to fish and fishing : the for- 

 mer, by way of supplement to the foregoing Dis- 

 course, are here laid down, and the latter will be 

 referred to. 



The property which the common law gives in 

 river fish uncaught, is of that kind which is called 

 special, or qualified property : which see defined 

 by Lord Coke, in his Reports, part vii. fo. 17, b. 

 and is derived out of the right to the place or 

 soil where such fish live : so that supposing them, 

 at any given instant, to belong to one person, 

 whenever they resort to the soil or water of ano- 

 ther, they become his property, and so in infini- 

 tum. 



And to prove that this notion of a fluctuating 

 or transitory property is what the law allows, we 



