590 ORAL ARGUMENT OF CRRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. C. 



are tame and reclaimed; and then it can have no application unless 

 there has been previous possession taken of them; and then that its 

 only ap])lication, purpose or value, is as an item of evidence tending to 

 show that they have been reclaimed; and as a necessary consequence 

 from that, that it has no application whatever unless this animus rever- 

 tendi is produced by the act of man. 



Now, let us see whether that is a correct statement of the law. In 

 the first place, in the case of domestic animals, animus revertendi has 

 no application and no place at all, because it is not wanted. It makes 

 no possible difference, if my horse or cow strays, whether they have the 

 animus revertendi or not. They are my property wherever they go to, 

 wherever I can follow them, and wherever I can find them. If ahorse 

 or a cow strays, it is often because of the instinct to get back to 

 some place with which he is better acquainted, and in which he has 

 lived longer. In the case of wild animals, it has no ai)plication, for a 

 totally different reason. It is absolutely useless, and has no value as 

 indicating or rather tending to prove property. A rabbit which leaves 

 my warren and a pheasant which leaves my preserve have, unquestion- 

 ably, animus revertendi', but that does not give me property in them. 

 My rabbit may leave its burrow on my land, and may cross the bound- 

 ary to my next neighbour, and while I am looking at it he may shoot 

 it. I may protest against it, or beg him not to. I may tell him, 

 "That animal has just left my land — it has got young on my land and 

 will return to them: leave him alone." My neighbour may say, "lam 

 very sorry; but he is on my land and I am going to shoot hin)." He 

 may shoot him and appropriate him, and I have no sort of recourse. 

 There is nothing clearer there than the animus revertendi. He does not 

 deny it; he is not concerned to deny it, but he simply says, "Here is a 

 wild animal on my land: if I can approi)riate him to myself, I have a 

 right to do it; and I am going to do it. Your protestations have no 

 force or value whatever. The law is on my side, and I am going to take 

 advantage of my rights under the law". I believe that is a proposition 

 which nobody having looked into the subject will attempt to dispute. 



If then animus revertendi has no application to either of those two 

 classes, the only one remaining is those animals which, being horn ferce 

 naturw, have become by the act of man so tamed or reclaimed that they 

 have j)assed from the class of wild animals into that of domestic ani- 

 mals. And then, if you desire to prove that though once wild they have 

 now become reclaimed, if you can show that they have a disposition to 

 return and that that disposition to return was created by you, it might 

 have some force and value as a piece of evidence to show reclamation 

 and taming; otherwise it has none. 



Take this simple instance. I catch a fox, or any other wild animal, 

 I do not care what, and having got him I keep him for a day and let 

 him go. He goes, and in his first instance of fright leaves my territory. 

 Beyond all question he is going to return ? He is going to return because 

 he has got his home on my land and is accustomed to it, or he has got 

 young on my land and natural instinct i^rompts him to return. But 

 that has no weight or efficacy in enabling me to claim property in him, 

 simply because I had nothing to do with producing it. If, on the other 

 hand, I have kept a wild animal so long that by feeding it and taming 

 it, or by confining it, when it leaves my place it intends to return, not 

 in obedience to any instinct produced by nature, but in consequence 

 of what I have done to it, and it desires to return to me for the pur- 

 pose of protection or feeding, or whatever it may be whiih it is accus- 



