

SOME POINTS IN LA W 43 



supposed to mean black game and ptarmigan. Many 

 Acts of Parliament use the word game in this sense when 

 they state that the provisions of the Act apply to " game 

 and rabbits, teal, widgeon, deer," etc. By various Acts 

 it has been made illegal to kill birds during the nesting 

 season. A table of the close times for each species of 

 game is given at the end of this chapter. 



Ownership of game. There is no property in game 

 or other wild animals in their natural state. In Scotland 

 they become the property of whoever captures them (in 

 the legal phrase, " reduces them into possession "), 

 even if the captor breaks the law in taking them, unless 

 forfeiture of the game is made a part of the penalty for 

 the offence. In England and Ireland the law is more 

 complicated. There, if game is flushed and killed on 

 the ground of one proprietor, it becomes his property. 

 If it is flushed on the ground of one man and killed or 

 captured on another's ground, it becomes the property 

 of its captor. Young game unable to leave the nest, or, 

 at least, the soil of its home, is the property of the owner 

 of the soil. In all three countries tame animals (or those 

 which have been tamed) are the property of the person 

 who keeps them. Young pheasants, hatched from a 

 setting of eggs by a barn-door hen, are considered to 

 be tame so long as they follow their foster-mother. To 

 steal them is therefore punishable as theft or larceny, 

 and they do not require the protection of the game laws. 

 Dead game also does not fall under the provisions of 

 the game laws, which do not make it a special offence 



