INTRODUCTORY xV 
erect engines which obstructed the ascent of salmon 
and facilitated their capture in undue numbers. 
The Scottish statutes of four hundred years ago 
commonly put down practices which “destroy the 
breed of fish, and hurt the commoun profite of the 
realme.” From earliest times it has been considered 
necessary to protect spawning fish by close seasons, 
and to do this satisfactorily observation as to the 
breeding season has been inevitable. Like the 
crime of sheep-stealing, the crime of poaching 
salmon in close time was punishable by death. In 
an Act of the first Parliament of James I. (1424) we 
find ‘‘Quha sa ever be convict of slauchter of 
Salmonde in time forbidden be the law, he sall pay 
fourtie shillings for the unlaw, and at the third time, 
gif he be convict of sik trespasse, he sall tyne his 
life, or then bye it.” The transference from forty 
shillings (Scots) to the death penalty seems rapid, 
nor is any indication given as to what may be 
regarded as the ultimate price of a poacher’s life. 
One thing seems clear, however : those early Scottish 
legislators were determined to preserve the breed 
of salmon. God bless their memory! In more 
recent times we have had not a few examples of 
how easy it is to destroy the salmon of a district, 
and how difficult it is to restore the breed. 
At once the most primitive and most deadly 
method of catching fish which inhabit rivers is by 
the erection of built barriers and enclosures. The 
Australian blacks make dams and pools of branches 
and stones, and drive the fish into them before floods 
subside. The North American Indian has for long 
