SALMON-SCOTCH PISHERT LAWS. 125 



Solway (see p. ll? ante), and here, although they have heen declared illegal, they 

 have never been suppressed. 



The Tweed is also a river which has been subject to peculiar legislation and 

 for -which special Acts are yet in force. The first regulations for the fishing 

 of this river and which are still extant, were made by the Scottish Parliament 

 in the time of King Robert the Bruce, several others succeeded until the first 

 Parliament of James I., when it was enacted " Quha sa ever be convict of 

 slauchter of salmonde in times forbidden be the law, he sail pay fourtie scheillings 

 for the unlaw, and at the third time, gif he be convict of sik trespasse sail tyne 

 his life or then bye it." The mode of purchase is not recorded. Douglas writing 

 of the Tweed Fisheries in the Proceedings of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, 

 1863, observed (p. 67), that in " a.d. 1429, in the ninth Parliament of James I, it 

 was enacted ' the waters of Solway and Tweede qu hilikis, sal be reddie to all 

 Scottesmen all time of the yier als lang as Berwick and Roxburgh ar in English 

 mennes handes.' Subsequently they came under the general law of Scotland."* 



Further up the East coast of Scotland, and entering a Firth of the same name, 



and hang-nets, the tenants of the fishings not being acquainted with any other. The trap-net 

 fishings at the mouth of the Nith, possessed by Sir W. Giddellin in 1811, let for £1395. (That 

 shows what the effect of the trap-nets had been.) " A comparisbn of the two rents at different 

 periods, on a nearer inspection, clearly points out the public as well as individual loss sustained 

 by the monopolizing fisheries about the time of the invention of trap-nets ; but the annual produce 

 of the sea fishings in the north of the Solway amounted to between £600 and £700." (In these 

 were included Sir James Graham's and the Solway fishing, which were £376.) " The price of 

 salmon was about 2J(J a lb., whereas at present, even in the most plentiful times, it is never below 

 &d, and is often Is and earlier in the season 2s, prices never thought of in old times. If to the 

 rents previous to the invention of the above destructive engines, we reckon the immense number 

 of salmon caught and consumed by the small proprietors fishing in the Solway, we cannot hesitate 

 in saying that the cause of the diseases is owing, if not mostly, at least in great measure, to the 

 destruction by such engines. The small proprietors, who follow the old modes of taking fish, I can 

 almost affirm upon oath do not get one-tenth part of what was formerly got, when the same 

 means were employed, which clearly shows that the trap-nets have taken them almost all." A 

 recent writer observed that " the avowed principle upon which the old Scotch Legislature acted 

 was this : they decided it was preferable that the Scotch salmon rivers along the Solway coast 

 should suffer damage through the use of fixed machinery rather than permit any chance of benefit 

 to accrue to their English neighbours. For this amiable reason the Solway waters were in ancient 

 times especially exempted from the beneficent enactment of the old Scotch salmon statutes, and 

 upon this ridiculous basis the obnoxious fixtures stand to this day." Possibly they will continue 

 for some years yet, probably coming under the care of the official appointed to " protect ancient 

 monuments," as a better monument of the savage legislation of times gone by could soarely be 

 found. As such, perhaps, it is interesting to some, but its continuance is very destructive to the 

 salmon, and consequently the food of the public. 



* Pennant, in 1776, recorded of the Tweed, that there are in the river 41 considerable 

 fisheries, extending upwards, about 14 miles from the mouth (the others above being of no great 

 value), which were then rented for near £5400 per annum. Twelve years later, a writer in The 

 Edinburgh Magazine of April, 1788, corroborated a statement of Pennant's, that the expenses of 

 fishing were £5000, to pay which it was necessary to capture 280,000 salmon, exclusive of grilse 

 and trout. In 1814, upwards of 58,000 salmon, excluding grilse, were taken, and in 1816, 54,041 

 salmon, 120,594 grilse and 67,074 trout, while the rent had risen to its maximum, £13,705. 6s Sd. 

 In the report of evidence taken before the Committee of the House of Gonvmons on tlie Salvian 

 Fisheries, in 1824, J. Wilson deposed that the rental in 1823 was £10,000, but for the last 

 seven years it had averaged £12,000 annually. That the fishing had -decreased during the 

 last three or four years, owing to the slaughter of breeding fish. For, he observed, the poached 

 fish " are sent to Edinburgh generally, and there they are protected, from the circumstance of the 

 Scotch fishings commencing so early : they say they come from the Clyde, from fishings which 

 commence in December : at that time they are quite unwholesome food." The poorer tenants in 

 the upper fisheries were also said to capture fish and sell them. Mr. Wilson considered the fish 

 began ascending the river about the middle of August. 



Douglas, in his paper on "the Tweed fisheries," Proceedings Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, 

 1863, p. 67, stated that in 1812 the rental of these was £20,000 per annum, but that they 

 rapidly decreased to £4000. The average estimated annual capture of fish for 18 years, endmg 

 1825, had been, of salmon 34,159, grilse 65,072, and trout 43,384. In five years ending 1858, the 

 average annual take had been, of sahnon 10,520, grilse 26,965, trout 26,895. In five years endmg 

 1863, the average annual take had been, of sahnon 9141, grilse 18,549, trout 35,518. In five years 

 ending 1874, the average annual take had been, of salmon 10,532, grilse 15,456, trout 28,841. In 

 1882 1412 cwt of salmon were sent from the Tweed to London, which, at 10 lb. per fish, would 

 give 15,814, but grUse may have been meluded. The rental in 1875 was £12,173, and in 1876, 

 £12,287. 



