SALMON-FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 65 



to his native river. What the pigeons are among birds, and 

 bees among insects, salmon are among fishes : they are all 

 property. If the pigeons belong to their cots, and bees to their 

 hives, salmon may be said to belong still more emphatically 

 to their rivers ; for a pigeon will sometimes leave his own cot 

 and go to another, but a salmon never forsakes his river for 

 another stream. To assimilate salmon, therefore, to haddocks, 

 or other vague fishes, is still worse than to class pigeons, with 

 their peculiar instincts, with larks, or other common birds ; 

 nor can the right of property in the salmon be denied more 

 than in the pigeons, both resting on the same instincts, and on 

 the same principles. 



Suppose, then, as we said, all the pigeons, and all the bees, 

 and, we may add, all the rabbits in the kingdom, all of which 

 admit, by their nature and instincts, of becoming private 

 property, as salmon among fishes, from similar instincts, do, 

 were, like salmon, inter regalia, and belonged to the Crown 

 originally, would it not be a great absurdity to say that, after 

 the Crown had made grants of all the dove-cots and their 

 pigeons, of all the bee-hives with their bees, and of all the 

 rabbit-warrens with their rabbits, as the Crown has done of all 

 the lands and salmon-rivers in the kingdom, to individuals, and 

 that those pigeons, bees, and rabbits, had become the property 

 of such individuals, that, nevertheless, they still belong to the 

 Crown, because they did so originally, before they were granted 

 away ? If there were other salmon besides those belonging to 

 the rivers, the Crown would still have a right to them ; but 

 there is not one which does not belong to one river or other, 

 nor, therefore, any which, after having given away the rivers, 

 can still belong to the Crown. The Crown is in exactly the 

 same predicament with any other proprietor, who, after having 

 sold or disposed of a subject, has no longer any more right of 

 any kind to it, than if it had never belonged to him. The 

 Crown, as we said, in granting a right to haddocks, or larks, 

 could only give a right to take them in particular parts ; but 

 in granting the dove-cots, including their pigeons, the bee-hives 

 with their bees, the salmon-rivers with their fisheries, the 

 rabbit-warrens with their rabbits, the Crown bestowed all these 



E 



