of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



93 



' to a dozen boats at that sort of fishing.* A uniform weekly and 



* annual close time for both sides of the Solway should also be 

 ' taken into consideration/ 



There are 34 fixed engines, with 126 pockets, employed in fishing 

 for salmon in the Annan District ; only 4 fixed engines, with 17 

 pockets, having been disallowed by the Special Commissioners in 

 1879. They granted certificates of privilege to the remainder.! 



Two reforms on the existing Salmon Fishery Law were strongly 

 pressed upon me in the Annan District, as they afterwards were in 

 the districts belonging to the other rivers flowing into the Scotch 

 shore of the Solway Firth, and these reforms are so necessary and so 

 urgent that I have no hesitation in recommending that they should be 

 given effect to. They were recommended by Mr Buckland and myself 

 in our Eeport of 1871, and again by Mr Walpole and myself in our 

 Report of 1881. There are great differences of opinion on many 

 points between upper and lower proprietors on the Solway, as else- 

 where in Scotland, but I have never yet met with any difference of 

 opinion concerning the necessity of, in the first place, making the 

 25th section of ' The ' Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act, 1868,' appli- 

 cable to the Solway Firth ; and, in the second place, empowering the 

 authorities, either in England or Scotland, to prosecute persons fish- 

 ing for salmon without a proper title in the low water channel of 

 the Solway Firth, and also giving authority to the Sheriffs or 

 Justices in any of the counties bordering on either side of the Firth 

 to issue warrants to cite offenders resident in another of these coun- 

 ties. Owing to the want of such a power at present, it is in many 

 cases almost impossible to prosecute and convict offenders. The 

 Solway Firth is in the position of a boundary river between Eng- 

 land and Scotland, and there seems no reason why a power 

 similar to that conferred by the 35th section of the Act of 1868, 

 in the case of boundary rivers between counties in Scotland, should 

 not likewise be conferred on the Sheriffs and Justices of the 

 Peace in the counties of Dumfries and Wigtown, the Stewartiy of 

 Kirkcudbright, and the county of Cumberland.! With regard to 

 the other reform recommended, namely, the making the 25th 

 section of the Act of 1868 to apply to the Solway Firth, that 

 section is as follows : — ' In order the better to carry out the pro- 



* visions of the Act of the 7th and 8th years of Her present Majesty, 

 1 chapter 95, it shall be lawful for any water bailiff, constable, 



* It should be made illegal to fish with nets of this kind between sunset and sun- 

 rise. That would give sufficient time to take all the sparlings to be got in the 

 Firth, as sparlings are generally found in shoals, one hole or pool swarming with 

 them, while in the next deep water "there are none. Hence, the time named is 

 quite sufficient to take all the sparlings to be found either in the Firth or the rivers ; 

 and if the men fished during daylight only, it would be easy to see what they were 

 killing. 



t See Appendix, No. I., namely, 'State showing the result of the Proceedings of « 

 ' the Special Commissioners for Solway Fisheries in regard to the fixed engines in the 

 ' Solway, and in the Rivers flowing into the same, 1879.' 



t In our Report of 1881 on the ' Laws affecting the Salmon Fisheries of the Solway 

 1 Firth,' Mr Walpole and I write as follows upon this subject :—' Grave inconve- 

 e nience arises from the fact, that a summons issued in England is not serviceable in 

 ' Scotland, and vice versa. This alteration of the law, however, is, we believe, 

 ' required on general grounds, and ought not to be confined to Salmon Fishery 



* purposes,' 



