10 SALMON-FISHEKY OF SCOTLAND. 



as there is not a salmon in the sea but which, from the very 

 law of its nature, miost come to the rivers, it is obvious that 

 every fish intercepted by a stake-net is taken from some river 

 fishing or other ; and that, while the public gain nothing what- 

 ever in consequence, the owners of the rivers are deprived of 

 their natural and legal rights by this interception of the fish. 

 In short, the effect of the new system is merely to produce a 

 transfer of property from one set of proprietors to another ; to 

 enrich the stake-net owners, who have neither right nor title to 

 such a boon, at the expense of the river heritors, whose pro- 

 perties have been secured to them by the strongest muniments 

 of title and prescription. 



In the meanwhile, the fishery, as might be expected, continues 

 to decrease, on the whole, more rapidly than ever. If, as has 

 already been observed, the salmon-fisheries, in aU countries, 

 decline in proportion as wealth and population increase, from 

 the constant and growing destruction of the species, the ad- 

 dition of so- many new modes of destruction, since the inven- 

 tion of stake-nets, must necessarily serve to aggravate the evil : 

 and such, accordingly, is the fact. Instead, therefore, of en- 

 couraging modes of fishing, which evidently trench deeply on 

 the sources of supply, and must ere long cut them entirely off, 

 the object of the legislature and of the courts of law should be 

 to restrain the capture of the fish by every means in their 

 power, consistent with the fair exercise of the rights of pro- 

 perty. This they could easily do by restricting the mode of 

 fishing, in all parts, to the movable coble-net. But the courts of 

 law, from mistaken notions relative to the fishery, have hither- 

 to done just the reverse, and have given every encouragement 

 to fixed nets, which they conceive can do little or no injury to 

 the rivers ; as if salmon dropt into them from the clouds, or 

 were in the same predicament with haddocks, herrings,* or cod. 



This conception, or rather misconception, however, has been 

 singularly disproved by the result. The fishery, as already 

 stated, has been progressively declining, and more rapidly, too, 



* Since this waa written the notion has been gi-owing, that herring may be 

 over-fished as well as salmon, and this has helped to lead to the prohibition of 

 the trawl, or circle net, by 14 & 16 Vict. Cap. 26. — Ed. 



