51 



stated that salmon fish deposit their spawn in the sea as well 

 as in the rivers, and this has been advanced on the authority 

 of Mr. Hector, an Aberdeen fisherman, already mentioned in 

 this work ; and if I recollect aright, Mr. Warburton, M. P. 

 argued in the House of Commons, that it was not material to 

 legislate for the preservation of the salmon river-fisheries, 

 as there was always an ample stock in the sea, at the mouths 

 of rivers, to maintain the river-fisheries as well as the fisheries 

 on the coast. Nevertheless, it would appear that our ancestors 

 thought differently; as they placed on the statute-book several 

 Acts of Parliament for the protection of the fish, which deserve 

 serious consideration before they are repealed, in order to 

 satisfy the views of persons who seek to make the salmon 

 fisheries common to every one. I shall mention some of these 

 Acts of Parliament which particularly relate to the preservation 

 of the salmon fisheries, and the repeal of which would seriously 

 injure the interests of the proprietors. 



By the Act passed in the 10th year of King Charles I. it 

 was enacted, " Forasmuch as great hurt and daily incon- 

 veniences have and do ensue unto all the king's subjects of 

 this realm, by the greedy appetites and insatiable desire which 

 sundry of them occupying fisheries have used, by taking and 

 killing the young spawn of salmon, as also setting of stop nets, 

 still nets, or standing nets, fixed upon posts or otherwise, in 

 the rivers where the salmon should pass up from the sea; be 

 it therefore enacted, that no manner of person or persons shall 

 use or set, or take any salmon with such stop nets, still nets, or 

 standing nets ; and if any person or persons offend in any of 

 the points before rehearsed, contrary to the tenor, form, and 

 purport of any part of the same, then every such person or 

 persons so offending shall lose and forfeit for every time of his 

 or their such offence, the sum of forty shillings and the fish, 

 and also the unlawful nets." 



This Act of Parliament I consider of great importance ; and 

 one which, if carried into effect in the present day, would go 

 far to remove the practice of taking the salmon by bag nets 

 and standing nets, as attempted at the mouth of the Bally- 



