420 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



appears to have no rights, the riparian proprietors being primd facie 

 owners of the fishings opposite or within their lands. 



But in Scotland a very different state of matters prevails. The 

 Crown is held to be vested in all Mussel, Oyster, and Salmon Fish- 

 ings in the sea, estuaries and inland waters as a patrimonial or 

 beneficial right, forming part of its heriditary revenues, but subject 

 to such rights as have been conferred upon private persons and 

 corporations by grant from the Crown." 



This right of salmon fishing in Scotland is classed amongst Crown 

 property as regalia minora, and is theoretically regarded as the 

 absolute property of the Sovereign to do with as he likes, the regalia 

 majora on the other hand refer to rights vested in the Crown as 

 custodier for the nation. In practice, one important difference is 

 that the former may be made the subject of grants to subjects while 

 the latter are not capable of alienation. Strictly speaking there is 

 no ownership of salmon, but the right is one of fishing for salmon, 

 the ownership of the fish being incidental, if one may so say, to the 

 legal right of fishing for this particular class of fish. 



This right is, in Scotland, a heritable estate like property in land, 

 and it is treated as property in land is treated. It may be conveyed 

 away quite separately from surrounding land, or may be held inde- 

 pendently from any possession of land. The fishing may be in the 

 sea or in the fresh water, and in either case the proprietor of the 

 right must have facilities for exercising the same. 



This condition often strikes people as anomalous, but it arises, in 

 Scotland, from the original patrimonial rights of the Crown, and for 

 the same reason it follows that all salmon fisheries not alienated to 

 a subject by the Crown, or to which no one can lay legal claim, belong 

 still to the Crown ; and also that if by the opening up of some water- 

 fall or obstruction to the ascent of salmon, new fisheries are created, 

 these must necessarily be, at the outset, in the possession of the 

 Crown. 



In Scotland, a great stretch of seacoast is still Crown property 

 in so far as salmon fisheries are concerned, but only a very limited 

 amount of fresh water is now so held. The Crown fisheries are 

 under the management of the Office of Woods, etc., London, 

 and the coast fisheries are regularly leased to tenants. The general 

 superintendence of the fisheries, no matter by whom owned, is 

 exercised by the Fishery Board for Scotland, through the instru- 

 mentality of the Inspector of Salmon Fisheries. 



In the early part of last century it was contended that the Crown's 



