THE SALMON 



CHAPTER XI 



THE LAW AS TO SALMON-FISHING 



BY CLAUD DOUGLAS PENNANT 



SINCE the days when Sir John Hawkins, Knight, 

 wrote his ' short discourse touching the laws of 

 angling by way of Postscript ' to Walton's ' Compleat 

 Angler,' many changes have taken place. In com- 

 piling a statement of the law as to the salmon, as it 

 at present stands, the chief difficulty of the writer has 

 been to compress within the space at his disposal all 

 that might be said upon so wide a subject, and at the 

 same time to render such statement clear and com- 

 prehensive at best it can only be instructive : to 

 make it light or even interesting reading is beyond 

 his hope or power. This difficulty is due to the fact 

 that the law varies in England (which country will be 

 taken in this chapter to include Wales), in Scotland, 

 and in Ireland, not to mention the districts of the 

 Tweed and Solway ; and although the policy of the 

 legislature, in recent times at any rate, has been to as- 

 similate the various systems, wide differences still exist. 



