556 Practical Game Preserving. 





coursing, or being in fresh pursuit of any deer, hare or fox already started upon 

 any other land. 



Section 36. Game may be taken from trespassers refusing to give it up, by 

 anyone having the right so to do. 



Section 37. Penalties to be paid to the overseer or some other officer of the 

 parish, as the justice may direct ; one half to go to the informer, and the other 

 half to the county (as per 5 & 6 Will. IV., c. 20, s. 31). 



Section 38. Justices to decide time within which the penalties are to be paid, 

 and in default the offender to be imprisoned in the common gaol or house of 

 correction (with or without hard labour, as the justices shall decide), for a term 

 not exceeding two calendar months, where the penalty, excluding costs, shall not 

 exceed ^5, or for not more than three months in any other case, the imprison- 

 ment always to cease on payment of the amount of the penalty and costs. 



Section 39 gives the form of conviction. 



Section 40. Justices to have power to summon witnesses, and any persons 

 failing to appear upon such summons, without reasonable excuse, to be liable to 

 a penalty not exceeding ^"5. 



Section 41. The prosecution to be commenced within three calendar months 

 from commission of the offence. The section also cites the mode of enforcing 

 appearance of offenders, &c. 



Section 42. It shall not be necessary for the prosecutor to negative by evidence 

 any certificate, licence, consent, authority, or other matter of exception or defence, 

 but the party adducing the same shall prove it. 



Section 43. Convictions to be returned to sessions for record. 



Section 44. Persons convicted to be entitled to appeal to the same. 



Section 45. Informality not to hold as reason for quashing any conviction. 



Section 46. This Act not to preclude actions for trespass, but no double pro- 

 ceedings to be taken for the same trespass. 



Section 47. Limits the extent of actions against persons acting in pursuance of 

 this Act. 

 Section 48. This Act to apply to England and Wales only. 



Note. This Act has been amended in several of its 

 sections by other Acts relating to game, which have been 

 passed since, but as it stands it still remains the chief of 

 the English game laws. It applies, however, with the ex- 

 ception of authorising apprehension of night trespassers, 

 only to poaching in the day time. For the prevention of 

 night poaching, the chief Act is the Night Poaching Act, 



