CHAP. 138.—An ACT to amend and re-enact an act entitled ‘An act
licensing the taking or catching of scallops with scrapes from the
publie grounds of the Commonwealth, and providing for the designation
of public scallop grounds,” approved March 28, 1922. [S B 80]

Approved March 29, 1928.

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 Common-
wealth, and providing for the designation of public scallop
grounds,” approved March twenty-eighth, nineteen hundred and
twenty-two, be amended and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

1. It shall be lawful for any person to take or catch seallops
with scrapes from the public grounds of the Commonwealth be-
tween January first and June first of each year, upon the pay-
ment 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 sha!l fur-
nish each such licensee with a metal ring having an inside
measurement of two inches, and it shall be unlawful for any per-
son to take or catch scallops of a size smaller than two inches,
measuring across the widest part thereof.

2. Any ground in the waters of this Commonwealth not
assigned to anyone for planting or bath purposes, may, on ap-
plication 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, provid-
ed in the opinion of the said commission no oyster interests
will suffer thereby, and the scallops are of sufficient quantity for
a rerson to realize at least one and one-half 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 ground 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. ,

8. 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.

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hereby repealed.

EE