Digitized  by  Microsoft®


REMEDY    BY   ACT   OF    LAW.  671

which  a  riparian  owner  has  to  a  navigable  river  for  the
purposes  of  exercising  the  public  right  of  navigation,  is  an
injury  to  a  right  of  property,  and  actionable  without  proof
of  special  damage,  and  may  be  restrained  by  injunction.^
It  is  a  question  of  fact  in  each  case,  whether  an  obstruc-
tion in  a  river  amounts  to  an  interference  with  the  right  of
access  to  a  river  frontage.^

An  action  will  lie  for  the  breaking  and  entering  a  Fishery,
several  or  a  free  fishery.'  The  owner  of  a  several  fishery
may  maintain  trespass  for  taking  his  fish,  but  the  owner
of  a  free  fishery  has  not  such  a  property  as  to  enable
him  to  maintain  trespass  for  taking  fish,  such  fish  not
being  his  property  until  caught.*

The  obstruction  of  the  passage  of  fish,  as  by  weirs,  is
actionable  by  the  owner  of  a  fishery  prejudiced  thereby.^

The  pollution  of  a  river,  which  has  the  effect  of  killing
or  driving  away  fish,  may  be  restrained  by  injunction.^

In  a  case  where  a  man,  by  making  an  embankment  and
enclosing  the  bed  of  a  river,  shut  out  and  prevented  the
tide  from  reaching  a  mussel  bed  and  breeding  ground,  the
Court  granted  an  injunction  to  restrain  this  encroachment
on  the  principle  of  irreparable  damage  to  the  fishery,
without  entering  on  or  deciding  the  question  as  to  the
right  of  ownership  in  the  soil.^

'  Lyon    V.    Fishmongers'    Co.,    \  *   Weld  v.  Hornby,  7  East,  195;

App.  C.  662 ;  Base  v.  Groves,  5  M.  Marquis  of  Donegal  v.  Hamilton,  3

&  G-.  613  ;  Bohson  t.  Blacimore,  9  Kidg.  P.  0.  267;  Leconfield -i .  Jions-

Q.  B.  991;  Huberts.  Groves,  1  Eap.  dale,  L.  K.,  5  0.  P.  726,  per  Bovill,

N.  P.  C.  148 ;  Fineux  v.  Hoveden,  0.  J.
