SALMON LEGISLATION IN SCOTLAND. 



WHEN a country is endowed by nature with a valuable 

 product it of course becomes her bounden duty so to watch 

 over it by wise and prudent regulation from time to time 

 as to preserve and if possible to increase its importance 

 both as a national and as an individual source of wealth. 

 When, in addition to its commercial value, it possesses the 

 economic and dainty qualities of the salmon as an article 

 of food, that duty becomes doubly imperative. It accord- 

 ingly does not surprise us that our ancestors were of the 

 same opinion, and to find in our statute books protective 

 enactments dating at variable intervals from the present 

 time as far back as the reigns of Robert the Bruce and 

 William the Lion, i.e., for no less than eight hundred years, 

 or at all events not far short of that extent of time. 



It is not necessary to discuss these early statutes, which, 

 though most of them are still nominally in force, are 

 practically in desuetude ; but we think it deserves to be 

 said, particularly of the earlier ones, that, apart from an 

 occasional looseness of expression which was unavoidable 

 considering the state of education and civilisation of the 

 times, they for the most part show clearly the intention of 

 the framers, and a spirit and determination with regard to 

 unfair and severe modes of fishing, which are worthy of our 

 admiration. 



