106 



and young brood, it follows that the aim of the law should be to 

 create the liveliest interest in preservation in those parts where 

 the powers for that purpose, or for destruction, can be exercised 

 namely, in the upper and fresh water portions of rivers. 



The policy of former legislation tended in the direction of con- 

 sidering Salmon a fish belonging to rivers. It was repeatedly 

 affirmed by enactment and recital that it was for the public 

 advantage that the spawning beds in Ireland should be protected. 

 Both legislation and practice have of late years proceeded in a 

 contrary direction, from the sanction given to the establishment 

 and increase of what are styled by Sir Walter Scott, 'the newly 

 invented modes of erecting snares for fish called tide-nets,' thus 

 multiplying a monopoly, and rendering the community indifferent 

 to protection. Those above were damnified to the extent of 

 their chance of catching some of the finny tribe, and this is a 

 difficult point on which to found an action. There is a vis 

 inerticc on the part of ' the public' to try a question of right, and 

 seldom sufficient individual interest on that of the owners of 

 property on the upper portions of a river to induce them to 

 embark in ' the troubled waters' of the law. Yet all are inter- 

 ested in the solution of the question of by what just and legal 

 means a free run of fish may be permitted to reach them. The 

 extraordinary instinct of the Salmon tribe, in penetrating to the 

 interior of the land, and thus diffusing themselves through a 

 country, may be said to indicate that this 'free gift of nature to 

 the captor' was peculiarly designed for the inland inhabitants. 

 Other fish remain in the salt water, and can be taken in shoals. 

 That the Legislature should give exclusive means to dwellers on 

 the sea shore for taking a fish apparently intended for those 

 otherwise unprovided, appears unfair. 



The owners of good angling* waters, which are often a valuable 

 property, whether for profit or for sport, have also been materially 

 injured; and, whether as magistrates or as sportsmen,! the suc- 



* It is often said that anglers make the best water-bailiffs.' 



To quote the words of Mr. Mulvany, one of the Commissioners of Fisheries 

 ' any attempt to suppress fair angling during the open season will, it is feared, 

 only tend to increase the disposition to destroy the breeding fish in the close time.' 

 Appendix, 1849, p. 54. 



' An angler has the same horror of weirs that a gentleman who keeps harriers 

 has of greyhounds ; they kill more with less sport.' Mr. Alcock's Evidence, 

 p. 457. 



f ' The duty of protecting river fisheries against poaching is very effectively 

 performed in Scotland, because you have every interest. You have sufficient 

 means to do it in the penal law of the land. Then you have the interest arising 

 from the preservation of a valuable property, and another interest, which is 

 quite as strong, particularly in my country, namely, the interest of the sports- 

 man ; because where a property is not made valuable to the party holding it, 

 in the shape of very high rents, it is often, as in the Tweed and some other rivers, 

 of great value as a right of sport ; and even large rents are paid to give the ex- 

 clusive use of it to tenants, lor the mere purpose of sport, without much regard 

 to the actual capture of fish.' Evidence of the Lord Advocate of Scotland, p. 520. 



