IV. 2 



PROTECTION OF ANIMALS FOR UTILITY 



I HAVE suggested that, in a general way, the development 

 of laws protecting animals because of their usefulness, suc- 

 ceeded in time the development of laws protecting the 

 objects of sport. Under the feudal system the king and 

 his court held first place, and so their pleasure was more 

 important than the nation's profit, since the nation, as we 

 think of it, consisted but of underlords and vassals. Thus 

 it was only with the gradual decay of the feudal idea and the 

 growth of a new appraising of values that the utilitarian aspect 

 of wild animals forced itself into notice. Even so, the growth 

 of a true economic protection has been a slow one, for the 

 earliest efforts at the legal protection of useful animals, were 

 mainly aimed at protecting such for the nobles and the 

 proprietors of land, and from the masses of the people. 

 With a few exceptions, it is only within comparatively recent 

 years that there has been passed utilitarian legislation con- 

 cerning animals, which affects the greater part of the popula- 

 tion. 



The laws protecting useful animals have had several 

 distinct ends in view. Some animals have been protected 

 because they could be used as food; others because of the 

 profit to be gained from their fur or skins ; a few because of 

 their value as scavengers; and a larger number because of 

 the special services they render to the agriculturist and the 

 nation at large. 



PROTECTION OF FOOD ANIMALS 

 BEASTS AND BIRDS 



History furnishes unpleasantly frequent records of the 

 occurrence in Scotland of times of great scarcity, when prices 

 of common articles of food rose to a prohibitive height (so 

 that, as in 1551, Acts establishing fixed prices of food-animals 

 had to be passed), when the poorer inhabitants were forced 

 to the sea-shore there to live upon the shell-fish gathered 



