94 SCOTCH SALMON AND SCOTCH LAW. 



What an admirable coup-d'ceil Mr Stevenson must have 

 qu'il a le nez fin ! Baron Munchausen himself could 

 scarcely do more. We wonder how Mr Stevenson dis- 

 covered ce beau secret. We suspect he must have found 

 it from the old rascal of a seal who misled Mr Halliday 

 for the Highlanders believe that the fallen spirits have 

 been sent into seals ; and certainly it required some- 

 thing more than human or, as our neighbours would 

 say, il fallait etre un peu plus que le diable * to have 

 discovered it." 



This unfortunate witness having further declared that 

 there cannot be a doubt that salmon spawn in the sea, 

 his merciless tormentor asks him, " Did the seal tell 

 him this also ? Perhaps, being a great sportsman, he 

 has met with some wild-ducks that build their nests 

 in trees, while others make their nests on the ground, 

 and has sagely concluded from thence that some salmon 

 spawn in fresh waters, and others in the sea ! " This 

 unmitigated nonsense is only paralleled by that of one 

 of the luminaries of the Scottish bar, who declared that 

 if all the rivers in the kingdom were blocked up, salmon 

 would become more plentiful than ever, as they would 

 then be forced to spawn in the sea ! Only fancy such 

 a man on the bench deciding a case involving acquaint- 

 ance with the natural history of fishes of the salmon 

 kind ! We have referred to Mr Mackenzie's sagacious 

 and witty comments on the evidence laid before Mr 

 Kennedy's Committee not for the sake of amusing our 

 readers with his lively sallies. The Blue-Book contain- 

 ing it is, in fact, the grand repository in which are pre- 

 served the facts and arguments relied upon by the par- 

 tisans of the stake-net fishing interest ; and these are 

 of greater interest now than ever, in consequence of the 

 decision of the House of Lords in the recent case of 

 Gammell v. the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. 

 It has been decided that the Crown is proprietor of all 

 salmon-fishings on the coast of Scotland, except so far 

 * One would need to be a little more knowing than the devil. 



