74 PROBLEMS IN WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



can be shown that they have become sufficiently tame so 

 that they will return of their own accord. 72 This is an ex- 

 ception to the general rule. 



Of course there is conisderable difficulty in determining 

 whether such intention to return exists. Even then should 

 a group of wild animals of a menagerie escape from their 

 owner's immediate possession, and to all appearances give 

 no intention of returning, his property in them continues 

 while they are within a reasonable distance. But a sea lion 

 escaping from a pool near New York City to the Atlantic 

 Ocean and caught seventy miles distant therefrom was con- 

 sidered as having regained his freedom. 73 It was not neces- 

 sary, said the court, that he return all the way to his native 

 haunts in the Pacific. 



At its best the principle is vague. The most that can be 

 said of it, is that the courts have tended to hold that wild 

 animals long confined, upon escaping from actual posesssion 

 but remaining in the near neighborhood are still the prop- 

 erty of their former possessor. 



Right of the Landowner to Wild Animals Found on His 

 Land: To the two methods of acquiring qualified property 

 in animals ferae naturae as listed by Coke may be added 

 two others. Thus the English courts 74 speak of qualified 

 property existing ratione soli and ratione privilegii. The 

 latter term pertains to hunting rights as estates created dis- 

 tinct from the land by ancient franchise of the king. 75 

 Under these old franchises it is still possible for an indi- 

 vidual in England to hold the exclusive hunting rights over 

 another's land. 76 



72 James v. Wood, 82 Me. 173, 19 Atl. 160 (1889). 

 Mullett v. Bradley, 24 Misc. 659, 53 N. Y. S. 781 (1898). 

 7 * Blades v. Higgs, op. cit., p. 1478. 



75 See p. 61. 



76 Duke of Devonshire v. Lodge, 7 B. & C. 39 (1827), p. 39. 



