Report on Salmon Fisheries. 
xxi 
' " Acts throw the burden of proof to a great extent on the 
' " persons in whose possession unseasonable salmon are found, 
' " whereas the Scotch Acts, as interpreted by the Courts, throw it 
' " on the prosecutor. It may also be stated that the Tweed 
' " Fisheries Act of 1859, section 10, throws the burden of proof 
' " on persons selling, or offering for sale, salmon caught during the 
' "annual close-time, that such fish were not taken contrary to 
'"the provisions of the Act; and, in the 19th section of the 
• " English Salmon Fisheries Act of 1873, the burden of proof is 
' " also thrown upon the person having unseasonable salmon in his 
* " possession." ' 
14. As regards the Scottish side of the Solway Firth, where the 2^^*** 
salmon fisheries suffer so much from the ravages of the whammel 11 
or hang-nets, the great thing wanted is to make the Act 7 & 8 
Vict. cap. 95, and its Amendment by the 25th section of the Salmon 
Fisheries Act of 1868, to apply to the Solway Firth. That Act 
and its Amendment have proved most efficacious in preventing and 
suppressing salmon poaching in other parts of Scotland. It is 
owing to a mere legal technicality that they cannot be enforced on 
the Scottish shore of the Solway, and there can be no doubt 
whatever that they ought to be made to apply to it. This matter 
will be found fully discussed in the Tenth Report of the Inspector 
of Salmon Fisheries, who visited the Nith and Annan Districts on 
the Solway in the course of last summer, and whose Report imme- 
diately follows that which we have now the honour to submit. 
In the course of last autumn, while on a visit to America, Sheriff The Hockin 
Guthrie-Smith, the Vice-Chairman of the Board, was much im- 1S " way " 
pressed by the remarkable facilities afforded by a recently invented 
fish-way for enabling the migratory salmonidse to surmount dams 
and other obstructions in salmon rivers. The inventor is Mr 
Robert Hockin, one of the Inspectors of Fisheries in Nova Scotia. 
His fish-way has been patented both in Canada and in the United 
States of America, and has received the approbation of such com- 
petent judges as Mr Wilmot, Superintendent of Fish Culture in 
Canada, and Colonel Marshall Macdonald, the Head of the Fishery 
Commission of the United States at Washington. The Vice- 
Chairman has received plans of this fish-way, which are hereafter 
reproduced in our Report, and which will clearly show its charac- 
teristics. 
The chief object of a fish-way is to enable migratory fish to pass 
easily over the obstruction on which it is placed, whenever the 
river is in such a state as to induce them to run. No fish- way 
that does not fulfil this condition can be called a successful one. 
A fish-way should be easy of access, and should be placed in such a 
position as to attract the fish. It should also not be too expensive 
and should not require frequent repairs. Yet, how few of our fish- 
ways in Scotland fulfil these conditions. Either the gradient is too 
steep, so that the rush of water prevents the ascent of running-fish ; 
or the fish-way is made in the wrong place ; or the supply of water 
to it is liable to be obstructed ; or the fish-way itself is apt to be 
choked up by gravel and debris ; or it is liable to be injured by 
freshets and ice so as to need constant repairs. It is thought that 
