64 SALMON-FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 



the rivers, it had no longer any right to the fish of those rivers. 

 This will be best explained by analogous cases of other animals, 

 with which persons in general are better acquainted. Some 

 animals are, by their nature and instincts, capable of being 

 rendered property, others are not. Suppose, then, the whole of 

 these animals belonged to the Crown, the Crown in giving 

 away the one would give a right of property, while it could 

 only give a right to take or " catch" the other. Thus, for in- 

 stance, the Crown could only give a right to catch haddocks, 

 for haddocks do not admit, by their nature, of being rendered 

 the property of any. In the same way, take larks, or thrushes, 

 or other common birds, which are attached to no particular 

 part, and have no particular instincts, the Crown might give a 

 right to one man to shoot them in one part, and to another 

 man to shoot them in another part ; the one right would not 

 interfere with the other, since none could claim a right of 

 property in such animals. But there are other animals of a 

 quite different description, which, as we have said, do admit of 

 becoming property ; thus, pigeons, for instance. If the Crown 

 granted a dove-cot with its pigeons, no man would say, that 

 the Crown granted only a right to kill the pigeons, for that 

 would be an absurdity ; the Crown, in making the grant, con- 

 veyed the pigeons in property] and they, from thenceforth, be- 

 longed to their owner, just as much as they formerly belonged 

 to the Crown. And it is exactly the same with salmon rivers, 

 since the salmon are not like haddocks, or common fishes, 

 swimming about at random, but belong to the rivers, just as 

 much as pigeons belong to their cots. If only stray or chance 

 pigeons came to the cot, its owner would, then, indeed, have 

 only a right to take such as might chance to come there. He 

 would have no right of property in any pigeons : but the pigeons 

 are linked by their instincts to their cot, as bees are to their 

 hives ; they belong to the cot, and upon this rests the right of 

 property of the owner of the cot to them ; yet the instincts by 

 which pigeons are linked to their cots, and bees to their hives, 

 are not half so strong, or half so sure, as the grander and more 

 powerful instinct which conducts the salmon through the ex- 

 tensive regions of the ocean, by the invincible law of his nature, 



