SALMON-FISHEEY OF SCOTLAND. 155 



of a claim of pertinent being established save by the possession. 

 It is a rule which admits of no exception. 



Thirdly. With regard to the assertion that trouts are res 

 nullius, and trout-fishing consequently a common law right 

 which all might exercise, it is evidently in direct contradiction 

 to the other pleas of the landowners ; for if trouts are res nullius, 

 they could not be a natural pertinent of their lands, nor could 

 the Crown have granted what did not belong to itself ; but, as 

 we said before, if the rivers belonged to the Crown, the trouts 

 in the rivers must have belonged to the Crown also, and could 

 not therefore be res nullius, for it would be contrary to all prin- 

 ciple to say that the produce of any property can be res nullius, 

 since, from the very nature of property, its produce must belong 

 to its owner. We would like, too, to see the law which declares 

 trouts to be res nullius. Where is it to be found ? Let it be 

 produced. Assertions are nothing. Any man may assert what 

 he pleases to be law, but let the grounds for asserting it is law 

 be shown. Let the precedent appear upon which it is founded. 

 But the landowners, while they make this assertion to aid their 

 claims, admit that the trouts belong originally to the Crown, 

 for their principal argument is founded upon that principle, 

 the res nullius, or common law right, being only brought in as 

 an accessory thereto. Accordingly, they assure us that the right 

 is a good heritable right as can be, flowing, as all heritable 

 rights do, from the Crown, as a pertinent of the land, while the 

 owner of this heritable right stands upon terra firma ; but if 

 he steps into a boat, this sam'e heritable right immediately 

 becomes a personal common law right, changing its character 

 just as he changed his position : a sort of mongrel, demi-herit- 

 able, demi-personal, hermaphrodite right, of recent discovery 

 among the magi of the Parliament House. Such are the in- 

 consequences which too much ingenuity often leads to : it over- 

 does itself. 



We have been trying to discover the grounds which gave 

 rise to the vague notion which seems to be floating, like a 

 dream, among the mists in the craniums of some lawyers, that 

 trouts are res nullius, but could only trace it to a random 

 expression of Stair, that " white fish, as cods, trouts, perch, &c., 



