THE LAWS OF ANGLING. 357 



Sturgeons, the king is entitled by his prerogative ; l and 

 the property of fish in rivers, or, at least, a right to take 

 them, is, in many places, given to corporations ; as, with 

 us, the fishery of the river Thames is granted to the City 

 of London ; and the Townsmen of Hungerford, in Berk- 

 shire, claim a right of fishing in that part of the river 

 Kennet, called their common water, under a grant from 

 John of Gaunt, who, we may suppose, derived it from the 

 Crown : 2 but in most instances fish belong to the owner 

 of the soil. 



These principles being recognised, and property once 

 settled, it is easy to see the necessity and the justice of 

 fencing it with positive laws. Accordingly, in this coun- 

 try, judicial determinations have, from time to time, been 

 made, ascertaining the rights of persons to fisheries ; and 

 these, together with the several statutes enacted to pre- 

 vent the destruction of fish, compose the body of Laws 

 relating to Fish and Fishing : the former, by way of sup- 

 plement to the foregoing Discourse, are here laid down ; 

 and the latter will be referred to. 



The property which the Common Law gives in river- 

 fish uncaught, is of that kind which is called special, or 

 qualified property ; which see defined by Lord Coke, in 

 his Reports, Part VII. fo. 17. b. and is derived out of the 

 right to the place or soil where such fish live : so that 

 supposing them, at any given instant, to belong to one 

 person, whenever they resort to the soil or water of ano- 

 ther, they become his property, and so in infinitum. 



And to prove that this notion of a fluctuating or tran- 

 sitory property is what the law allows, we need only 

 apply it to the case of the water in a river ; which is so 



(1) 1 Coke 16. The Case of Swans. 



(2) The townsmen of Hungerford have a horn, holding about a quart, the in- 

 tcription whereon affirms it to have been given by John of Gaunt, with the 

 Rial-fishing (so it is therein expressed) in a certain part of the river. Gibi, 

 Camden, 166. 



