422 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



put into cold stores and sold in the close season. The Fishmongers' 

 Company of London have greatly assisted in preventing the sale of 

 illegally caught fish, which unscrupulous persons might try to pass 

 off as fish from cold stores, by instituting a system of attaching lead 

 seals to fish in stores, so that even if a fish is cut into several pieces 

 each piece will bear the seal of the Fishmongers' Company. The 

 definition also takes no account of the sparling or smelt, a fish of the 

 salmon kind which migrates from the sea to our estuaries at certain 

 seasons. It might well be specially exempt from the definition. 



Since in Scotland the right of salmon fishing by whatever method 

 is inter regalia, the Title to salmon fishing must in every case 

 originate as a Grant from the Crown. 



" An express grant of salmon fishings in certain specified waters 

 at once vests the grantee in the right without any need of pre- 

 scription to complete the right, or any fear of losing the right a non 

 utendo, it being res merae facultatis. But though an express grant 

 does not require possession to complete it, possession is frequently 

 required to explain and define it, as the terms of the grant are often 

 vague, and the change of local names sometimes makes vague a title 

 which was originally clear and precise." * 



" Where there is no express grant of salmon fishings, the right 

 may yet be acquired by possession (i.e. user and enjoyment) for the 

 prescriptive period of forty years, now reduced to twenty years by 

 the Conveyancing (Scotland) Act, 1874 (37 and 38 Viet. C. 94, S. 34), 

 or for time immemorial, proceeding on a habile title. There are two 

 kinds of title habile to found prescription : viz. A Crown grant of 

 the lands with fishings not specified as salmon fishings, and a barony 

 title whether or not such title expressly states cum piscationibus." 



" This method of prescribing a title to salmon fishing is also a 

 grant from the Crown, as the prescriptive possession merely interprets 

 the original grant from the Crown on which it proceeds." 



An important case in defining the validity of title to salmon 

 fishings was that of The Lord Advocate v. Sinclair in 1865. 2 Lord 

 Deas there laid down the following statement of law respecting the 

 conveyance of a title : " A salmon fishing being inter regalia and 

 seperatum tenementum requires to be conveyed by the dispositive 

 clause of the deed. The proper object of the dispositive clause is to 

 specify and describe the subjects conveyed. The mention of salmon 



1 Tait. The Law of Scotland as applied to the Game Laws, Trout and Salmon 

 Fishing. Edinburgh, William Green & Sons, 1901. 



2 3 M. 981, per Lord Deas at p. 998. 



