PROTECTION OF ANIMALS FOR UTILITY 219 



For ane fute, ane marke. For ane tuth, twelve pennies... For ane strake 

 with steiked neif [clenched fist], twelve pennies... For ane strake with the 

 fute, fortie pennies. For the blude shed out of the head of ane Earle, nine 

 kye. 



In Scotland at the present time the annual close season 

 for Salmon differs according to local conditions in individual 

 rivers, but in no case must it be less than 168 days. A 

 weekly close time for nets from 6 a.m. on Saturday till 6 a.m. 

 on Monday, the "weekly slap," gives much needed facility 

 for migrating Salmon to pass beyond the estuaries up the 

 rivers. 



Adult Salmon are further protected by comparatively 

 recent legislation (1862) prohibiting the taking of fish which, 

 having spawned, have not yet completed their seaward 

 migration foul fish or kelts, and unseasonable fish. 



Several measures have been adopted for the preservation 

 of young Salmon : spawning beds may not be disturbed, even 

 banks suitable for spawning must not be interfered with, 

 the taking of Salmon parr is totally prohibited, and as early 

 as 1457, it was decreed that "na man in smolt time set 

 veschellis, crelyis, weris, or any uthir ingyne, to let [prevent] 

 the smoltis to pass to the see." 



Trout are protected by restricting to private individuals 

 what were at first public rights, by restrictions as to the 

 modes of fishing, and by an annual close season extending 

 from the I5th of October to the 28th of February. 



So the "multiplicatioune of fische, salmonde, grilsis and 

 trowtis" has been encouraged in Scotland ; but the direct 

 protection has given rise to another and important means of 

 "multiplicatioune," for the institution of private property in 

 fishing has encouraged the artificial rearing of Salmon and 

 Trout fry in specially designed hatcheries. There they are 

 brought through the early stages of life, free from the in- 

 numerable dangers from physical accident and natural 

 enemies to which they are exposed in open rivers, and are 

 launched annually in their thousands on suitable feeding- 

 grounds in their own or in distant waters. Some notion of 

 the significance offish hatcheries maybe gathered from the 

 facts that in the season 1915-16 the 224 breeding stations in 

 Switzerland hatched 157,97 1,000 eggs of fresh-water fishes, 

 and that in 1915 the hatcheries of the United States of 



