FLOATING PKOPEKTY AND THE LAW. 101 



a bee-hive to its bees, or a dovecot to its pigeons." 

 Precisely; but the difficulty lies in identifying such 

 floating property. We have heard of a litigation as to 

 a swarm of bees, which were finally returned to their 

 rightful owner because he proved that he had dusted 

 them with flour, and that those which had gone to his 

 neighbour were white with flour. Salmon bred in 

 rivers have undoubtedly been often identified on their 

 return from the sea, and must frequently be caught in the 

 sea with marks upon them showing in what river they 

 were bred. But unless that river belong to a single 

 proprietor, it is impossible to say to whom they belong. 

 Mr Mackenzie argues, that if there were no fishings 

 except in rivers, each proprietor of a salmon river 

 would get his own salmon, the produce of his own pro- 

 perty, and none else, for none else would enter it. As 

 a general statement, this is true ; but it is too strongly 

 put. Accidental circumstances often force the salmon 

 out of their natural course ; and not a season passes in 

 which stray fish from the Tay are not found in the 

 Forth, or in the South Esk, and identified, in conse- 

 quence of bearing the Stormontfield mark. But while 

 it is not always practicable to identify the aquatic 

 estate, as Mr Mackenzie terms it, of a river proprietor, 

 he turns the difficulty of connecting the salmon with its 

 owner into an argument against a maritime proprietor 

 having a right to the salmon passing his property. 



" How can he connect himself with them ? They do 

 not even trespass on his lands, like bees or pigeons, so 

 as to afford so much as a pretext upon which to engraft 

 a claim to them. If they migrate to the ocean, the 

 ocean does not belong to him. The rights of his lands 

 end at the water-edge. He has not a particle of right 

 one inch beyond that, any more than any other indivi- 

 dual of the community ; or to the salmon passing in the 

 adjacent water, any more than he has to the birds which 

 are flying in the air. To talk, therefore, of his natural 

 right, ex adverso (as lawyers say) of his lands, to the 



