164 THE PRACTICAL FISHERMAN. 



been attributed the decay of salmon in the Thames. An analogous reason 

 for the decrease of salmon in Ireland was given by Dr. Boute in his 

 " Natural History " of that country. He says that before the Eevolution 

 in 1688, to which the author ascribes all the national calamities, salmon 

 were plentiful and cheap. Shakespeare mentions the fish in Othello in 

 such a way as to infer its fashionableness. 



The laws made in reference to this fish are the true index to its 

 estimation as an article of trade. They appear to have been of such a 

 nature as to show that the fish was recognised as merchandise of a 

 profitable kind. As a matter of curiosity it may be worth while to 

 glance at some of the quaintest of the clauses referred to. In the year 

 1423, the second Act of Henry VI., it is ordered that the "buttes of 

 salmon comying be wey of merchandise into this land out of strange 

 countries should be of certain mesure." In the twenty-second Ed. IV., in 

 which the right of fishing in the Tweed is let on form to the merchants 

 and freemen of Berwick ; the packing of salmon in barrels was also 

 regulated. 



Magna Charta has two clauses affecting salmon, one putting a stop to 

 the further " defending " or appropriation of fisheries by the Crown or 

 its grantees, and the other prohibiting all weirs or "curries," except 

 only by the sea coast. Other laws affecting the close time, and variously 

 regulating the salmon industry, were afterwards made as occasion seemed 

 to dictate for both public and private interests, but until 1681 it appears 

 that the close times of several of the most productive English rivers were 

 regulated by the Acts of Eichard II., which had nominally been in 

 force, therefore, for 500 years. With the subsequent multitude of Acts 

 affecting our home fisheries it is not here necessary to deal. 



In Scotland legislation began almost as soon, and proceeded with objects 

 identical with those of Ireland and England. The commencement of 

 Scotch salmon law began under the governance of Robert the Bruce, and, 

 according to Alexander Russell, occupied "an incredible share of the 

 attention of the Parliaments of his successors for several hundred years ; 

 so that in reading the collection of ancient Scottish statutes one is apt to 

 think that the chief thing which Scotland achieved on the field of 

 Bannockburn was ' Acts anent the preservation of salmonde.' " These 

 statutes for the preservation of the " reid fische," as it was termed, are 

 admirable in spirit, and exhibit all the thoroughness and severity of the 

 Scotch character when dealing with matters whereby money accrues. 

 Over and over again the reason given for an enactment is the praiseworthy 

 one, because such practices i.e., engines of destruction, &c., " destroy 

 the breed of fish and limit the commonn profite of the realme." The 

 penalties attached to the violation of these laws is as remarkable as their 



