212 THE FISHERY LA WS. 



regulation by Acts of Parliament) the landowner entitled 

 to take fish in an adjacent river can deal with them as his 

 absolute property before they are caught. His right is to 

 catch them in his own water, and (subject to the doubt about 

 fishery in a navigable river being public) to prevent others 

 from catching them. But he must not artificially prevent 

 the passage and repassage of the fish between his part of 

 the river and his neighbours' by dams, weirs, or the like 

 contrivances. He must leave to his neighbours the en-' 

 joyment of opportunities equal to his own. Such was 

 the old law, as it appears by Magna Charta, * thus in- 

 terpreted by Coke : " No owner of the banks of rivers shall 

 so appropriate, or keep the rivers several to him, to defend 

 or bar others either to have passage or fish there," (fish 

 must here be the noun, not verb) " otherwise than they were 

 used in the reign of King Henry II." Another clause in 

 the Charter purported to abolish fishing-weirs : " Omnes 

 kidelli deponantur de cetero penitus per Tamisiam et 

 Medeweyam et per totam Angliam nisi per costeram 

 maris." 2 Both branches of the law, however, were soon 

 and extensively disregarded. A series of later Acts of 

 Parliament for the suppression of weirs shows how difficult 

 it was found to keep the action of riparian owners " regard- 

 ing only their private and greedy profit " 3 within bounds 



1 Cap. 1 6. An action by an upper against a lower riparian owner 

 on the Dart, for building a new salmon weir to the prejudice of the 

 older one above it, occurs in the newly printed Year-Book of n & 12 

 Ed. III., p. 468. (A.D. 1338.) It is reported only as a precedent of 

 pleading, so the result does not appear. 



2 Cap. 23. 



3 These were the words of Parliament in 1705 : 4 & 5 Anne, c. 8, 

 quoted in the judgment of the Fisheries Commissioners in Leconfield 

 v. Lonsdale, L. R. 5 C. P. at p. 683, where a full account of the old 

 statutes is given. 



