ENTRY BY LORD OF THE MANOR. 84-5 



allowed the liberty of going to enjoy the air when they please {lb.) In 

 Comyn's Digest {Biens B.) it is said that ' deer in a park, conies in a 

 warren, and doves in a dove-house go with the inheritance to the heir.' 

 A man may prescribe to have a game of swans within his manor, and 

 may prescribe that his swans may swim in the manor of another. A 

 swan may be an estray, and cygnets belong equally to the owner of the 

 cock and the hen, and shall be divided betwixt them " {Reg. v. Lady 

 Joan Young). The punishment for stealing a swan used to be that it 

 should be tied up by the neck, and the offender should pile wheat on it 

 till it was covered. And per Bagleg J. : " Bees are property, and the 

 subject of larceny " {Hamiam v. Mockett). But dogs are not the subject 

 of larceny at common law, and therefore not chattels within statute 

 7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 29, s. 53 {Reg. v. Robmson). 



Any possession is legal possession as against an evil-doer {Graham 

 V. Peat; Oughfon v, Sejipings). A pfcirtg ivho has the legal title to land, 

 having entered, may maintain trespass against a person wrongfully in 

 possession at the time of entry, and continuing in such possession after- 

 wards {Butclw V. Butcher). And per Bagleg J. : " Taunton v. Costar 

 is an authority to show that a party wrongfully holding possession of 

 land cannot treat the rightful owner, who enters on the land, as a tres- 

 passer. I think that a party having a right to the land, acquires by 

 entry the lawful possession of it, and may maintain trespass against any 

 person who being in possession at the time of his entry wrongfully con- 

 tinues on the land." And 2^cr Lord Tenterden C.J. : " It is not neces- 

 sary that the party who makes the entry should declare that he enters 

 to take possession ; it is sufficient, if he does any act, to show his inten- 

 tion. Here his servants ploughed the land : it is manifest, therefore, 

 that he intended to take possession." 



Since 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 27, a mere entrg Inj a lord of the manor 

 (where, as possession had commenced adversely more than twenty years 

 before, and nothing had occurred to interrupt or put an end to it, 

 ejectment was too late) is not enough to bar the tenant's right, unless 

 accompanied by circumstances which would restore the possession of 

 the land to the lord {Doe dem. Baiter v. Goombes). Here the defendant, 

 more than twenty years ago, without permission of the lord, inclosed a 

 small portion of the waste of a manor, on which he built himself a hut. 

 In 1835, the encroachment having been presented at the lord's court 

 the then lord of the manor, accompanied by his steward, went to the 

 premises, Coombes' family being there, and stating that he took pos- 

 session, directed that a stone should be taken out of the wall of the hut 

 and that a portion of the fence should be removed. All this was done 

 in the absence of Coombes, and the lord and the steward then retired 



