Chap. 385.—An ACT to amend and re-enact an act entitled an act licensing the
taking or catching of scallops with scrapes from the public grounds of the
Commonwealth, and providing for the designation of public scallop grounds,
approved March 28, 1922, as amended by an act approved March 29, 1923.

[H B 128]
Approved March 24, 1926.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That an
act entitled an act licensing the taking or catching of scallops with
scrapes from the public grounds of the Commonwealth, and providing
for the designation of public scallop grounds, approved March twenty-
eighth, nineteen hundred and twenty-two, as amended by an act
approved March twenty-ninth, nineteen hundred and twenty-three,
be amended, and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

Section 1. It shall be lawful for any person to take or catch
scallops with scrapes from the public grounds of the Commonwealth
between January first and May first of each year, upon the payment
to the inspector of the district in which he resides of a license tax of
two dollars per year, and an inspector’s fee of fifty cents, which shall
include the privilege of marketing and shipping scallops so taken or
caught. The inspector shall furnish each such licensee with a metal
ring having an inside measurement of one and three-quarters inches,
and it shall be unlawful for any person to take, catch or have in
possession scallops of a size smaller than one and three-quarters
inches, which will pass through said metal ring.

Section 2. Any ground in the waters of this Commonwealth not
assigned to anyone for planting or bath purposes, may. on application
of twenty or more citizens to the oyster inspector of the district in
which the land lies, be laid off and designated as public scallop grounds;
or the commission of fisheries may do so without such petition if in
its judgment it is expedient; provided, in the opinion of the said com-
mission no oyster interests will suffer thereby, and the scallops are of
sufficient quantity for a person to realize at least three dollars per day
catching and taking scallops from said ground, and, if laid off, the
commission of fisheries shall have the metes and bounds of said
grounds accurately designated by proper and suitable stakes, and
also have a plat made of same, to be recorded in the clerk’s office of
the county wherein the ground lies, all costs of surveying, platting
and recording to be paid by the applicants; and said grounds shall be
set apart and remain as public scallop ground for the common use of
the citizens of this State so long as the said commission may deem
best, and shall not be assigned to anyone during such period.

Section 3. Any person violating any provision of this act shall
be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof,
be fined not less than twenty-five dollars, nor more than one hundred
dollars, and be confined_in,jail not_less than ten days nor more than
six months.

2. All acts and parts of acts inconsistent with this act are hereby
repealed.