12 



that the stake- net fishing were continued to a later 

 period of the season ; surely we have some reason 

 to conclude, that it will take a very sufficient 

 quant ty of breeding fish. 



In fishing, as in all other sporting, no fact is 

 better established that this, that if you pursue the 

 game too constantly in one spot, they will soon 

 desert it altogether. From some such cause as 

 this, I presume, it arises, that the stake-net fishers 

 find it convenient to move their stakes every two 

 or three years, (the fishing in that part of the 

 shore being destroyed for a time,) what then 

 must be the effect on the whole fishing, when this 

 system is in full vigour ? It is not, however, by 

 what is taken alone that the upper fisheries can be 

 permanently injured, but by the obstruction which 

 the breeding Salmon meet with. Accordingly, the 

 leading feature in the law regarding river fishing 

 in Scotland, as well as in England and Ireland, is 

 that the passage of the fish up and down must not 

 be permanently interrupted. Even where cruives 

 have obtained place, besides being under strict 

 enactments (according to the statute quoted by our 

 Author) as to the breadth of water-course, the 

 owners are obliged to allow the whole to be open- 

 ed lor twenty-four hours every week. No man can 

 erect anew wear for taking fish in a river, although 

 it did not reach the middle of the channel, nor can 

 any proprietor of the bank of a lake erect a stake-net. 

 And is it to be supposed the upper heritors will 

 allow the lower to use means of fishing which they 



