218 PROTECTION OF ANIMAL LIFE 



Originally the right to catch Salmon was a common 

 right, but the value of the fish soon led to interference with 

 the privileges of the people at large, and at an early date 

 property in salmon fishings became vested in the Crown. 

 By grants and charters the Crown bestowed the rights in 

 these valuable properties to private individuals, often in- 

 dependently of the land in which the fishing lay, so that 

 the taking of Salmon became a right limited to a favoured 

 few of the population, for whom it was protected by statutes 

 innumerable. 



Yet from the time of Robert the Bruce, the law made 

 many endeavours to preserve the fishes themselves, and 

 these regulations follow well-recognized lines common to 

 all legislation protecting animals the protection of adults, 

 especially at breeding times, and the safeguarding of the 

 young. 



Modes of catching the fish were severely restricted. 

 Fixed engines, stake-nets and bag-nets were prohibited in 

 rivers and in tidal estuaries, and it was enacted in the reign 

 of James I "that all cruives and yaires set in freshe watteris, 

 quhair the sea fillis and ebbis, the quhilk destroyis the frie 

 of all fisches, be destroyed and put awaie for ever mair" 

 (1424). The general effect of such restrictions, which 

 are of wide application, is to give adult fishes, returning 

 from the sea to fresh water, a sporting chance of reaching 

 their spawning beds in the upper reaches of the rivers. 



The safety of breeding fish was sought by prohibiting 

 the taking of "baggit" Salmon, that is, Salmon about to 

 spawn, and by the creation of close seasons, which were first 

 instituted in the Act of James I just quoted, the close time 

 being there designated as from 



the Feast of the Assumption of our Ladie quhill [until] the Feast of St 

 Andrew in winter.... Quha sa ever be convict of slauchter of salmonde in 

 time forbidden be the law, he sail pay fourtie shillings for the unlaw, and 

 at the third time, gif he be convict of sik trespasse, he sail tyne [lose] his 

 life or then [else] bye it [i.e. pay its value as ransom]. 



What the ransom was for a life in 1424, I do not know, 

 unless it was that of a law attributed to a much earlier date, 

 which stipulated "For the life of ane man nine time twentie 

 kye," and proceeds to put a mercenary value upon various 

 acts of violence 



