124 SALMON BRITISH AND COLONIAL. 



"The interdict granted by the Court below struck at 

 all kinds of apparatus for which the land was required 

 as a point of support, and to that extent he agreed with 

 the Court, and held that, so far as stake-nets and other 

 apparatus had any connection with the land or sea- 

 coast, these were illegal. In short, the kind of fishery 

 of salmon which was prohibited was that to which the 

 nse of the sea-coast was essential. The right of the 

 Crown in the present case must be rested entirely on 

 the authorities peculiar to the law of Scotland, and it 

 was needless to refer to the law of England, or of any 

 foreign country, for the purpose of showing how such 

 rights were viewed there. It seemed that early in the 

 history of Scotland salmon was singled out as dis- 

 tinguished from other fishes, and the right to fish for it 

 was classed inter regalia. So Craig, Stair, Erskine, and 

 Bell laid it down that, unless there was a special grant, 

 or a general grant followed by possession, the subject 

 had no right to fish for salmon." 



Further light on the legal status of Scotch salmon 

 is afforded in the Lord Advocate's evidence before the 

 Lords' Committee. 



" In Scotland the salmon is not a royal fish in the 

 proper sense of the words. It is not like sturgeons and 

 whales, the property in which truly belongs to the 

 Crown. The whale was held to be a royal fish, but a 

 salmon-fishing is a separate estate. It is a separate, 

 real, or heritable estate, as it is called in the law of 

 Scotland, and consequently is vested, as all real estate 

 is, in the Crown. By the law of Scotland, under the 

 old feudal principle which still subsists, all the land 

 and real rights of Scotland are vested in the Crown, 

 and can only pass from the Crown by a specific grant, 

 or by what is equivalent to a specific grant. The right 

 of salmon-fishing, accordingly, is a separate estate so 

 much so, that the Crown may grant a right of salmon- 

 fishing in a river although the grantee have no property 

 on either bank. Therefore salmon-fishing can only be 



