SALMON-FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 95 



sea, but they never ascend except as grilses or salmon. ' The 

 words alluded to by his lordship are therefore the strongest 

 proof that it was not to rivers the clause alludes, since the fry 

 of salmon, as we have said, never ascend rivers ; the words 

 mean merely the ascending and descending, or flowing up and 

 down of the fry of all fishes on the shores, with the tide, by 

 which they are carried into and destroyed in the yairs, which, 

 if they remained stationary, could not happen. If a cart-load 

 of fry were taken out of a yair in one tide, there might be 

 another cart-load carried into it by the next tide, the con- 

 stant flowing up and down of the fry with the tide along the 

 shores rendering them liable to destruction every tide in those 

 engines, which shows the good sense with which the statutes 

 were framed, prohibiting fixed engines in all waters to which 

 the tide reached. 



The next is the statute of James I., 1424, which ordains 

 that 



"All cruives and yairs set in fresche waters, where the sea filles 

 and ebbes, the quhilk destroys the fry of all fishes, be destroyed and 

 put away for ever mair notwithstanding ony privilege given to the 

 contrair ; and they that has cruives in fresche waters, that they gar 

 keep the laws anent Saturday's slap, and that ilk heck of the cruives 

 be three inches wide, as the auld statute requires," &c. 



Any one who reads this statute must see at once that there 

 is an error in the word fresche in the first part of the clause, 

 which prohibits cruives in fresh waters, and then states that 

 those who have cruives in "fresche waters " must regulate 

 them according to law. The error is so palpable that any 

 explanation seems almost unnecessary. If the word fresh be 

 omitted in the first part of the clause, the statute will be quite 

 consistent with the rest of the statutes ; and this alone is suf- 

 ficient to show that the word was an error, to whatever cause 

 it was owing. It will farther be evident, 



First, Because the clause prohibits cruives and yairs in 

 fresche waters, where, it says, they destroy the fry of all fishes : 

 but " the fry of all fishes" are never found in fresh waters : so 

 that it is quite evident the word fresche could not have been in 

 the original statute. 



