Pollution Act), to water cattle, &c. In some cases the validity of local riparian customs has been recognized by the legislature. The right to enter on lands adjoining tidal waters for the purpose of watching for and landing herrings, pilchards and other sea-fish was confirmed to the fishermen of Somerset, Devon and Cornwall by I Jac. 1. c. 23. Digging sand on the shore of tidal waters for use as manure on the land was granted to the inhabitants of Devon and Cornwall by 7 Jac. I. c. 18. The public right of taking or killing rabbits in the daytime on any sea bank or river bank in the county of Lincoln, so far as the tide extends, or within one furlong of such bank, was preserved by the Larceny Act 1881. It should be noticed that rights of the public may be subject to private rights. Where the river is navigable, although the right of navigation is common to the subjects of the realm, it may be connected with a right to exclusive access to riparian land, the invasion of which may form the ground for legal proceedings by the riparian proprietor (see Lyon v. The Fishmongers' Company, 1876, 1 A.C. 662). There is no common-law right of support by subterranean water. A grant of land passes all watercourses, unless reserved to the grantor.
A freshwater lake appears to be governed by the same law as a non-tidal river, surface water being pan soli. The preponderance of authority is in favour of the right of the riparian proprietors as against the crown. Most of the law will be found in Bristow v. Cormican, 1878, 3 A.C. 648.
Unlawful and malicious injury to sea and river banks, towing paths, sluices, flood-gates, mill-dams, &c.. or poisoning fish, is a crime under the Malicious Damage Act 1861.
Ferry is a franchise created by grant or prescription. When created it is a highway of a special description, a monopoly to be used only for the public advantage, so that the toll levied must be reasonable. The grantee may have an action or an injunction for infringement of his rights by competition unless the mfrmgcment be by act of parliament. In Hopkins v. G.N. Ry. Co., 1877, 2 Q.B.D. 224 (followed in Dibden v. Skirrow, 1907, i Ch. 437). it was held that the owner of a ferry cannot maintain an action for loss of traffic caused by a new bridge or ferry made to provide for new traffic Many ferries are now regulated by local acts.
Weir, the gurges of Domesday, the kidellus of Magna Carta, as appurtenant to a fishery, is a nuisance at common law unless granted by the crown before 1272. From the etymology of kidellus the weir was probably at first of wicker, later of timber or stone. The owner of a several fishery in tidal waters cannot maintain his claim to a weir unless he can show a title going back to Magna Carta. In private waters he must claim by grant or prescription. Numerous fishery acts from 25 Edw. III, st. 4, c. 4 deal with weirs, especially with regard to salmon fishery. An interesting case is Hanbury v. Jenkins, 1901, 2Ch 401, where it was held that a grant of “wears” in the Usk by Henry VIII. in 1516 passed the bed of the river as well as the right of fishing.
Mill may be erected by any one, subject to local regulations and to his detaining the water no longer than is reasonably necessary for the working of the wheel. But if a dam be put across running water, the erection of it can only be justified by grant or prescription, or (in a manor) by manorial custom. On navigable rivers it must have existed before 1272. The owner of it cannot pen up the water permanently so as to make a pond of it.
Bathing.—The reported cases affect only sea-bathing, but Hall (p. 160) is of opinion that a right to bathe in private waters may exist by prescription or custom. There is no common-law right to bathe in the sea or to place bathing-machines on the shore. Prescription or custom is necessary to support a claim, whether the foreshore is the property of the crown or of a private owner {Brinckman V. Matley, 1904, 2 Ch. 313). Bathing in the sea or in rivers is now often regulated by the by-laws of a local authority. Scotland. — The law of Scotland is in general accordance with that of England. One of the principal differences is that in Scotland, if a charter state that the sea is the boundary of a grant, the foreshore is included in the grant, subject to the burden of crown rights for public purposes. Persons engaged in the herring fishery off the coast of Scotland have, by 11 Geo. III. c . 31, the right to use the shore for 100 yds. from high-water mark for landing and dr>'ing nets, erecting huts and curing fish. By the Army Act 1881. s . 143, soldiers on the march in Scotland pay only half toll at ferries. The right of ferry is one of the regalia minora acquirable by prescriptive possession on a charter of barony. Sea-greens are private propeny. The right to take seaweed from another's foreshore may be prescribed as a servitude.
Interference with the free passage of salmon by abstraction of water to artificial channels is res trainable by interdict (Pirie v. Earl of Kinlore, 1906, A.C. 478). See the Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Acts 1828 to 1868.
In Ireland the law is in general accordance with that of England. In R. V . Clinton, I.R 4 C.L. 6, the Irish court went perhaps beyond any English precedent in holding that to carry away drift seaweed from the foreshore is not larceny. The Rivers Pollution Act 1876 was re-enacted for Ireland by the similar act of 1893.
In the United States the common law of England was originally the law, the state succeeding to the right of the crown. This was no doubt sufficient in the thirteen original states, which are not traversed by rivers of the largest size, but was not generally followed when it became obvious that new conditions, unknown in England. had arisen. Accordingly the soil of navigable rivers, fresh or salt, and of lakes, is vested in the state, which has power to regulate navigation and impose tolls. The admiralty jurisdiction of the United States extends to all public navigable rivers and lakes where commerce is carried on between different states or with foreign nations (Genesee Chief v. Fitzhugh, 12 Howard's Rep. 443). And in a case decided in 1893 it was held that the open waters of the great lakes are “high seas” within the meaning of § 5346 of the Revised Statutes (U.S. v Rodgers, 150 U.S. Rep. 249). A state may establish ferries and authorize dams. But if water from a <lam overflow a public highway, an indictable nuisance is caused. The right of eminent domain is exercised to a greater extent than in England in the compulsory acquisition of sites for mills and the construction of levees or embankments, especially on the Mississippi. In the drier country of the west and in the mining districts, the common law as to irrigation has had to be altered, and what was called the " Arid Region Doctrine " was gradually established. By it the first user of water has a right by priority of occupation if he give notice to the public of an intention to appropriate, provided that he be competent to hold land.
Authorities.—Hall's Essay on the Rights of the Crown on the Sea-Shore (1830) has been re-edited in 1875 and 1888. See also S. A. and H.S. Moore. History and Law of Fisheries (1903). Among American authorities are the works of Angell, Gould and Pomeroy, on Waters and Watercourses, Washburn on Easements, Angell on the Right of Property in Tide Waters, Kirney on Irrigation and the Report to the Senate on Irrigation (1900). (J. W.)
WATER-SCORPION, an aquatic hemipterous insect of the
family Nepidae, so called from its superficial resemblance to a
scorpion, which is due to the modification of the legs of the
anterior pair for pretension, and to the presence of a long
slender process, simulating a tail, at the posterior end of the
abdomen. The common British species (Nepa cinerea) lives
in ponds and stagnant water, and feeds upon aquatic animal
organisms principally of the insect kind. Respiration in the
adult is effected by means of the caudal process, which consists
of a pair of half-tubes capable of being locked together to form
a siphon by means of which air is conducted to the tracheae
at the apex of the abdomen when the tip of the tube is thrust
above the surface of the water. In immature forms the siphon
is undeveloped and breathing takes place through six pairs of
abdominal spiracles. The eggs, laid in the stems of plants,
are supplied with seven filamentous processes which float freely
in the water.
In Nepa the body is broad and flat; but in an allied water-bug, Ranatra, which contains a single British species (R. linearis), it is long and narrow, while the legs are very slender, and elongate. Certain exotic members of this group, sometimes erroneously referred to the Nepidae, but really forming a special family, Belostomidae. are of large size, a South American species, Belostoma grande, reaching a length of between 4 and 5 in.
WATERSHED, in physical geography, the line separating the
head streams tributary to two different river-systems or basins.
Alternative terms are " water-parting " and " divide." The
crest of a mountain ridge forms the most clearly marked watershed,
in a plain country of gentle slope (e.g. the central plain of
Ireland) the watershed is often difficult to trace, as the headwaters
of two different river systems may merge in marshes or
lakes at the highest levels. In a mountainous country, where
two streams, flowing in opposite directions but having their
sources adjacent, are both gradually eroding or cutting back
the land at their heads, a pass is formed. In such cases, where
one stream erodes faster than the other, the stronger may
ultimately “behead” the weaker, and “capture” some of its
waters, whose flow is diverted from one basin to another.
WATERSPOUT, a local vorticular storm occurring over a water-surface, and in origin and form similar to a tornado (q.v.) over the land. A whirling, funnel-shaped cloud, first observed as a pendant fr«m the mass of storm-cloud above, seems to grow downwards, tapering, towards the water-surface, which is violently agitated, and finally (when the spout is fully developed) appears to be drawn up to meet the cloud from above. This appearance is deceptive, as the bulk of the water carried along by the whirling spout is condensed from the atmosphere, and, even when the spout is formed over a salt-water surface, is found to be fresh. Waterspouts occur most frequently over the warm seas of the tropics, but they are not confined to the warmer tropical seasons, or even to low latitudes.
