SALMON-FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 69 



and nibble at it as they please, but still the principle stands 

 firm as a rock. That the Crown has been in the practice of 

 making grants of servitudes to coast heritors to intercept the 

 salmon passing on to the rivers, can add nothing to their legal- 

 ity, since no practice can render that legal which is in itself 

 otherwise. So has the Crown been in the practice of granting 

 the coast heritors rights to yairs, which are declared (even 

 those of the Crown itself) by repeated Acts of Parliament to 

 be illegal, and the mere fact of their being granted by the 

 Crown cannot render them otherwise ; yet the Court of 'Session, 

 which, as we have said, seldom troubles itself with principles, 

 has been in the habit of considering these yair grants as legal, 

 and it is therefore the less wonder that they should look on the 

 grants of the servitudes upon the rivers to be so. 



If these servitudes of intercepting the fish passing on to the 

 rivers cannot be defended without violating a great principle 

 of law, the claims of the coast heritors will not acquire much 

 strength on the score of justice ; for, exclusive of what we have 

 already said, that there is no possible connection between their 

 lands and the salmon in a different element, let us just look 

 to the manner in which their grants have been obtained. For 

 example, a possessor of land on the coast, some fifty or a 

 hundred years ago, takes it into his head that he could catch 

 salmon opposite to his lands, and applies to the Crown for a 

 fishing grant, as a bagatelle, to be obtained for asking. The 

 Crown, however, lest any existing vested right should be in- 

 jured thereby, renders the application public by advertisement, 

 and if no objection be made, taking it for granted that no 

 injury could arise from it to any, the grant is given, gratis, as 

 asked. The grant, after being thus obtained, is found, how- 

 ever, to be useless, and becomes a dead letter in the titles of 

 the lands, so that if the estate is sold, not one farthing is paid 

 for fishings which have no actual existence, and which pay no 

 rent. In the mean time stake-nets are invented, and all the 

 grants immediately start into life. These engines, placed on 

 the course of the salmon, open a prospect of intercepting nearly 

 the whole of them on their way to the rivers, and of transfer- 

 ring the fishery to the coasts. Unfortunately, the ancient stat- 



