THE SALMON AND CHANNEL FISHERIES. 175 



prescribing against an act of parliament, or that 

 any duration of enjoyment will legalise encroach- 

 ment. If the channel and trap be private property f , 

 the power of taking fish contrary to law cannot be 

 a private right. The net of the fisherman is private 

 property ; but he cannot take fish with such net un- 

 less the mesh be constructed according to law. This 

 seems to me to decide the question. 



We are now arrived at a more enlightened and 

 less turbulent period, the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 

 By the strong language used in the preamble to 

 a statute passed in the first year of her Majesty's 

 reign, it appears that very great excesses had been 

 committed by the destruction of the fry of fish ; 

 and therefore, by 



1 ELIZ. c. 17. 



Entitled, " An Act for the Preservation of the Spawn and 

 Fry of Fish, (at first limited, but made perpetual by the 

 3 C. I.) 



1. It is enacted, that no person with any manner of 

 net, or device, or engine made, or to be made, shall take or 

 kill any young salmon or other jish, at weirs, mill-tails, or 

 other places, or take or kill salmon not being in season. 



2. No person shall take or kill salmon not being 16 

 inches in length. 



3. No person shall fish or take Jish with any manner of net, 

 $c., " or by any other engine, device, ways or means whatso- 

 " ever, but only with net or tramel, whereof every mesh or 

 " mash shall be two inches and a half broad ;" angling ex- 

 cepted. 



4. Smaller mesh-nets may be used for taking certain 

 small fish, provided other fish are not taken therewith, con- 

 trary to the tenor of this act. 



