80 SALMON-FISHEKY OF SCOTLAND. 



considered proof of it, or make it law ? We have already re- 

 marked, that if salmon were like haddocks, which seems to be 

 the notion entertained of them by some judges, the Crown 

 could only give a right to " catch" them, because haddocks do 

 not admit, from their nature, to become property ; but, to 

 return to our former illustration of pigeons belonging to their 

 cots, which is so applicable to salmon belonging to their 

 rivers, if the Crown granted to a man the pigeons of a certain 

 dove-cot, would any honest lawyer maintain that the Crown 

 only granted him a right to " catch" them, and gave no right of 

 property in them, or that, notwithstanding having so granted 

 them away, they still belong to the Crown ? To argue upon a 

 grant of pigeons, as if they were like larks or thrushes, or re- 

 garding salmon as if they were like haddocks, or, in short, 

 regarding any one animal, not as it actually is, or upon its own 

 nature, but upon the nature of other animals, can never, in any 

 instance, as we before remarked, lead but to error ; and this, as 

 we have already stated, has been the grand cause of so much 

 error regarding salmon, which are viewed, not as they actually 

 are, belonging to the rivers, the right to which was just as much 

 a right of property as a right to the pigeons belonging to their 

 respective cots, but as haddocks, which belong to no particular 

 part, and to which, therefore, no right of property could, as we 

 said, be affixed. But, setting all argument on the subject 

 aside, the very FACT stated by Erskine, and obvious to all, that 

 the fish constitute the estate of the grantees, from which a right 

 of property CANNOT be separated, is conclusive on the subject. 

 It is a point which cannot be got over. 



That the Crown, in granting the river fisheries, reserved a 

 right to impose servitudes upon them, of intercepting the fish 

 in their way to them, we have repeatedly denied for there is 

 no such reservation, as we have said, inserted in the grants, 

 and it would be absurd to say it could be implied with regard 

 to salmon-rivers, any more than with regard to lands. The 

 single circumstance we have already stated, that such servi- 

 tudes might be so multiplied along the coasts as to occasion 

 the utter eviction of the river fisheries, is alone a sufficient re- 

 futation of such doctrine. But even if the Crown had the 



