44 
Appendices to Eighth Annual Report 
river. This cause, joined to the wholesale pollution of the Tweed and its 
tributaries, and the extensive poaching which prevails seem to render it 
improbable that the Tweed will ever again produce 200,000 fish in a year, 
as it occasionally did in the earlier years of the present century.* 
NOTE III. 
REPORT BY THE INSPECTOR OF SALMON FISHERIES ON 
LETTER FROM THE SOLICITOR TO THE FISHMONGERS 
COMPANY, LONDON, TO MR BERRINGTON, INSPECTOR 
OF SALMON FISHERIES FOR ENGLAND AND WALES, 
TRANSMITTED TO THE FISHERY BOARD BY THE SECRE- 
TARY FOR SCOTLAND, FOR THEIR OBSERVATIONS 
THEREON. 
5th September 1888. 
I have the honour to report that a letter, dated 26th July 1888, from Mr 
Charles O. Humphreys, Solicitor to the Fishmongers' Company, London, 
addressed to Mr Berrington, Chief Inspector of Salmon Fisheries for 
England and Wales, has been remitted to me by the Fishery Board for 
my observations thereupon. 
Before proceeding to consider seriatim the suggestions contained in Mr 
Humphreys' letter, I think it is proper that I should, in the first place, 
direct the attention of the Board to his proposal that the provisions of 
the Bill, understood to be in preparation by the Lord Advocate, should 
be made ' general to the whole of the United Kingdom, and not exclusive 
to Scotland.' 
With regard to this recommendation, I beg to observe that the laws 
applicable to the Salmon Fisheries in Scotland are so radically different 
in principle and practice from those of England and Ireland, that it would 
be almost impossible to assimilate them ; and that it would be far better 
to have a separate bill for each division of the United Kingdom, instead 
of one attempting to reconcile the irreconcilable differences of principle 
which separate the Salmon Fishery law of Scotland from that of England 
and of Ireland. 
: To show how radical is the difference between the law of Scotland and 
the laws of England and Ireland, which are almost identical, I may 
mention that, while in Scotland there is no such thing as a public right 
of salmon fishing — all salmon fishings, whether in rivers, estuaries, or 
in the narrow seas, belonging either to the Crown or to the grantees of 
the Crown — in England, on the other hand, the salmon fishings in 
navigable rivers, and in the narrow seas, belong to the public as a general 
rule, the exception being where a proprietor can establish a right to what 
is termed a ' several fishery,' that is to say, to an exclusive right of fishing, 
presumably dating back to Magna Charta. 
Then again, fixed engines, in the shape of stake and bag nets, are legal 
and in universal use around the coasts of Scotland, outside rivers and 
estuaries ; whereas, in England and Ireland, they are prohibited as a 
general rule, though there are certain privileged fixed engines, such as 
those mentioned in section 41 of the English Salmon Fisheries Act of 
* The statistics above given seem to show that high cultivation and other results 
of advanced civilisation which cannot be interfered with, are decidedly inimical 
to the productiveness of our salmon rivers ; and that probably the only way to 
restore that productiveness and to maintain it is to follow the example of the United 
States and of Canada, and establish Government Hatcheries for the artificial breed- 
ing of the Salmonidfe. 
