ORAL ARGUMENT OF CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. C. 589 



not care wliat it is — 1 do not care whether it is the case of ducts and 

 putting out decoys, or the case of wild animals and putting out food for 

 them — I do not care in what case you do it — it is just the ordinary 

 device of the hunter to get the animals to voluntarily submit them- 

 selves to his power, and to come to the' place where he can exercise 

 power over them. Take the case of wild geese, which has been referred 

 to. It may be said, there truly that man acts on their instinct. He 

 imitates the call of their mates, and si^reads food, and endeavours by 

 every jiossible means to induce them to voluntarily submit themselves 

 to his j)Ower and control 5 and if they do submit themselves to his con- 

 trol to such an extent as to come within range, so as to enable him to 

 secure them, he does secure them, and with them the useful result. 



But is there any result which the United States obtain here except 

 the result of getting the animals' skins? — of being able to kill them and 

 securing the produce*? That, I venture to think, is the only useful 

 result, if it can be called a useful result; and that useful result he does 

 not obtain either by anything he secures or by any acting on their 

 instinct. If, then, he does neither of those things, how can it be said, 

 as it is said in the conclusion of that sentence, that it is the practice of 

 art, care and industry on the part of man, which brings about useful 

 results'? What "art" does he practise, except that art which a hunter 

 practises to deceive and delude wild animals'? What industry does he 

 l)ractise except the industry of killing them and selling their skins? 

 Is not every single element in that proposition unfounded in fact? If 

 it be unfounded in fact, then it is unnecessary to discuss how far the 

 law has any application to it. 



I myself do not believe, or rather I submit that you cannot make 

 out— unless these animals are domestic animals, which I shall speak of 

 hereafter — that if all these things were done which it is argued would 

 give property, there is any law to warrant such inference. Suppose 

 they are wild animals — I am assuming, of course, all along, that they 

 retain that class still and have notclianged or been diverted from it by 

 any act on the part of man — if they are wild animals, and if, as a matter 

 of fact, man does act on their natural disposition to secure their vol- 

 untary return — it cannot be voluntary because if they knew he was 

 there they would not come back — but if he secures their habitual return 

 to his custody and power, so as to make the same use of it as in the 

 case of domestic animals, so as to kill and eat them or sell them, and 

 thus secure the useful result — if he does all that, what does he do with 

 regard to the seals that the hunter does not do in the case of every 

 other wild animal. He acts on their instinct and so secures their return, 

 and obtains the useful result. I submit therefore that it is indifferent 

 whether these facts which are here stated are true as facts, which I 

 have endeavored to show that they are not, or whether they are not true. 

 If they are true as facts we submit there is no law which, by reason of 

 them, gives any property in the people who practise these arts. 



My friend says this species of property is well described as property 

 'per industriam. Now you have only to read Blackstone or Bracton, or 

 any other authority on the subject, and you will see that industria as 

 there described is of a wholly different character. 



Perhaps I may as well say here that it is difficult to conduct an argu- 

 ment of this sort in any sort of order; and there is a matter which may 

 come in now well as at any other stage, a matter which has been already 

 referred to: namely animus revertendi, and the application which, in my 

 view, it has to this case. I submit as an incontestable proposition of law 

 that it has no api)lication whatever to this case, unless these animals 



