16 



Appendices to Seventh Annual Report 



From the foregoing statement you will at once see, that all yachtsmen who 

 have neither a title to salmon fishings nor permission from one who has a title, 

 but who, notwithstanding, fish for or take salmon, grilse, or sea-trout, in the 

 narrow seas around the coast of Scotland, within the limits over which the 

 rights of the Crown and its grantees extend, infringe the law and render them- 

 selves liable to prosecution and punishment. 



The Fishery Board for Scotland, established by the Fishery Board (Scotland) 

 Act, 1882, has now the general superintendence of the salmon fisheries in 

 Scotland, and I am instructed to request that you will be so good as to take an 

 early opportunity of bringing this matter prominently under the special notice 

 of the members of your club. — I am, your obedient servant, Dugald 

 Graham, Secretary. 



To the Secretary of Yacht Club. 



When it is taken into consideration that, in 1888, there were 62 

 yacht clubs in the United Kingdom, and 5174 yachts, and that English 

 and Irish yachtsmen, who have not paid special attention to the subject, 

 can scarcely be expected to know that the law in Scotland differs so 

 much from that which applies to England and Ireland, — where salmon 

 fishing in navigable rivers, in estuaries, and in the narrow seas is, as a 

 rule, a public right, — it will be generally admitted that these circulars 

 were not uncalled for. 



' SCRINGING. ' 



The great evil against which the Awe District Board and the pro- 

 prietors of salmon fisheries — from Loch Crinan to the head of Loch 

 Etive, on the Linnhe Loch and lochs opening into it, on the Sound and 

 Island of Mull — have to contend, is the practice of what is locally termed 

 ' Scringing,' which has been fully described in my third and sixth 

 Reports to the Board. Scringing for sea-trout and salmon — chiefly for 

 the former — is prosecuted in the above-named localities by means of nets 

 used by fishermen who have no title to fish for salmon in their own 

 persons, nor permission from one who has a title ; and, occasionally also, 

 by fishermen who rent a small salmon fishing from a proprietor, and use 

 this as a pretext to capture salmon and sea-trout where they have no 

 right to fish. The scringers and their boats are well known, and yet 

 they land their poached fish openly at the quays at Oban without being 

 stopped by the police, although the 25th section of ' The Salmon Fisheries 

 (Scotland) Act, 1868,' provides that : — 



In order the better to carry out the provisions of the Act of the seventh and 

 eighth years of her present Majesty, chapter 95, it shall be lawful for any 

 water-bailiff, constable, watcher, or officer of any District Board, or any police 

 officer, to search all boats, boat tackle, nets, or other engines, and all receptacles, 

 whether at sea or on shore, which he or they may have reason to suspect may 

 contain salmon captured in contravention of the said last-mentioned Act, and 

 to seize all salmon found in the possession of persons not having a right to fish 

 salmon, and the possession of such salmon shall be held prima facie evidence 

 of the purpose of the possessor to contravene, the provisions of the said last- 

 mentioned Act ; provided also that the words £ the said-recited Acts,' contained 

 in the second section of the last-mentioned Act, shall lie read and construed as 

 if they meant and included this Act and the Acts recited therein. 



To me it seems that there could scarcely be a more stringently worded 

 section than the above, and that it throws upon the scringers, as strongly 

 and clearly as words can do, the onus of proving that they got, legally, 

 the sea-trout or salmon found in their possession, If not, the words 

 ' and the possession of such salmon shall be held prima facie evidence 

 ' of the purpose of the possessor, to contravene the provisions of the said 

 £ last-mentioned Act,' have no meaning whatever. I was told, last 

 summer, at Oban, that the reason why the police are not allowed to 



