xii 
Report on Salmon Fisheries. 
Illicit traffic in 
salmon. 
Proprietors 
and lessees of 
salmon fishings 
cannot prose- 
cute for contra- 
vention of 
hye-laws in 
districts where 
there is no 
District Board. 
in spring, or whether some of them ascend from the loch into the 
Dochart, its principal feeder. 
The Board regret to state that the illicit traffic in salmon from 
Newburgh and elsewhere on the Tay, and from other localities in 
Scotland, to English and foreign markets, still continues, no legisla- 
tion having as yet taken place to carry out the steps which we had 
the honour to recommend in our Seventh Report as necessary to 
prevent it. As the matter is one of much importance, and as it is 
understood to be occupying the attention of the Fisheries Depart- 
ment of the Board of Trade and of the Fishmongers' Company of 
London, we beg to recapitulate what was there recommended : — 
' What is chiefly required in Scotland are powers of search and 
seizure, conferred on officers of District Boards, river watchers, 
police officers, &c., such as are given with regard to game by the 
second section of the Poaching Prevention Act of 1862 ; the pro- 
hibition of the sale, offering for sale, or having in possession, for 
the purpose of sale, of salmon caught during the extension of 
time for rod-fishing ; and the throwing on persons in whose pos- 
session salmon are found, in a district where the annual close-time 
has commenced, the amis of proving that they got them in a 
district where it was still legal to take them. All these advantages 
have been possessed for some years past in England, and why they 
should be withheld from Scotland, where the salmon fishings are 
three times as valuable and the facilities for poaching so much 
greater, it is difficult to comprehend. Generally speaking, it may 
be said that the English 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 pesron having the unseasonable salmon in his possession.' * 
The case of Captain Dunbar Brand er of Pitgaveny, who is a 
proprietor of salmon fishings in the district of the river Lossie and 
lessee of the rod-fishings in that river, has brought prominently 
into notice a great defect in the existing salmon fishery laws, as it 
has been found that he, though a proprietor and lessee of salmon 
fishings, has no title to prosecute for a breach of any of the bye-laws 
which form parts of the Salmon Fishery Acts of 1862 and 1868. 
There is no District Board for the Lossie, and it has been held by 
the Court of Session, in the case of ' Blair v. Sandeman and 
* Lumsden, 20th July 1869,' that proceedings for the enforcement 
of a bye-law must first be taken by the Clerk to the District Board 
under section 29 of ' The Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act, 1862,' 
the respondent, failing obedience, being then liable to be proceeded 
against under section 28 of that Act as kept in force by section 30 
of ' The Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act, 1868.' 
In the case of the Lossie, Captain Dunbar Brander attempted to 
enforce the provisions of the bye-law (Schedule G), which directs 
* See also the Inspector's Seveuth Annual Keport to the Fishery Board, pp.18 and 19t 
