THE SOLWAY DEE 419 



occasionally by a seventh. These also are unlike the con- 

 trivances used in any other part of Scotland. They are called 

 yairs. In the quotation given on p. 415, written about the 

 year 1684, a single " fish yard " is referred to, but evidently 

 when the Special Commissioners for Solway Fisheries appointed 

 in 1877 made their enquiry the seven yairs had been regularly 

 fished since before 1862. Nevertheless, the Commissioners 

 regarding their position as altogether illegal as apart from the 

 question of use and wont, ordered their removal. Ultimately 

 the Court held that the Commissioners had no right to enquire 

 into the question of legality as a matter separate from " a right 

 to salmon fishing " and " use in the years specified," and the 

 seven yairs were granted certificates of privilege. Four of them 

 belong to Sir Charles Hope, of St. Mary's Isle, and three to the 

 Burgh of Kirkcudbright. Sir Charles Hope now rents the town 

 nets and fishes them along with his own. 



In the making of a yair there are two long walls of wattling 

 which converge in V -shape ; these are the leaders. At the 

 apex of the V is an aperture 20 feet broad and practically 

 square. In this, when the tide is up and the yair is fishing, a 

 large net is fixed. The net has a capacious bag which streams 

 out with the current, the sides being fitted on rings which can 

 travel on two upright poles, the bottom being lashed to a cross- 

 beam. A man sits on a frail staging at the top of the net and 

 holds in his hand five fine cords attached to different points 

 in the bag of the net. By holding these fairly tight after the 

 fashion of a man driving a team of horses, he is able to feel a fish 

 strike the bag of the net at any point. As in all other Solway 

 Estuaries, the water is so discoloured with the fine silt in 

 suspension, that he cannot see fish entering the net. When a 

 fish strikes the net, the man at once drops his cords and seizes a 

 long upright shaft attached to the centre of the bottom cross- 

 beam, and hauls it up so that the retreat of the fish is cut off and 

 the prize secured. The yair net is therefore like a large hoop 

 net, or like the shoulder net just described, but is fished between 

 leaders as a fixed engine. My photograph shows the net 

 hauled up, the tide being out. The long central pole is laid 

 back from the top of the staging. When the net is fishing it 

 reaches to the bottom of the square aperture. The leaders 

 may be arranged either to fish the flood-tide or the ebb-tide. 



DD* 



