GAME REFUGES. 5 



extends to the public lands of the United States within the State's 

 borders. (See Cooley's Constitutional Limitations, p. 291.) 



Such is the language of the court. 



The earliest of the widely quoted cases on the character of the 

 State's authority over the capture or killing and taking of game is 

 that of Geer v. Connecticut (161 U. S., 519). This was a case in 

 which the authority of the State to control the disposition of game, 

 or its transportation beyond the State's border after being lawfully 

 killed was challenged in the Connecticut courts, and the case went 

 to the Supreme Court on the proposition that the State statute 

 violated the Constitution of the United States. The opinion of the 

 court, which was rendered March 2, 1896, by Justice White, discussed 

 at length the character of wild game, the questions of ownership in 

 the same, and the control of the sovereign over game, going back to 

 English law and following through the colonies to the States of the 

 Union. 



That case is the one most quoted, because it covers the ground 

 most completely. 



The decision quoted with approval many State and Federal cases 

 to the effect that "the wild game within a State belongs to the people 

 in their collective sovereign capacity" (Ex parte Maier, Supreme 

 Court of California); "the State represents its people in this owner- 

 ship" (Martin v. Waddell, 16 Pet., 410); and this ownership and 

 control "is in the State, not as a proprietor but in its sovereign 

 capacity" (State v. Rodman, Supreme Court, Minnesota). 



Referring to the complete and exclusive authority of the sovereign 

 over game the court in this case — that is, the case of Geer v. Con- 

 necticut — said : 



It is also certain that this power which the colonies thus possessed passed — 



That is, the sovereign power over game — 



to the States with the separation from the mother country, and remains in them at the 

 present day. 



The next of the important cases, and one very much in point in 

 connection with this legislation, is the case of Ward v. Racehorse 

 (U. S. Rept., 163, p. 504), Ward being a sheriff in my State and Race- 

 horse being an Indian. The decision in this case was also delivered 

 by Justice White and was handed down May 25, 1896. This case 

 arose out of the hunting of elk by certain Indians in the State of 

 Wyoming at a time when the State game law prohibited such hunting. 

 It was claimed on behalf of the Indians that they had a right to hunt 

 on the unoccupied lands of the United States by reason of the pro- 

 visions of article 4 of the treaty of February 24, 1869, with the 

 Bannock Indians, wherein it was provided that the Indians — 



shall have the right to hunt upon the unoccupied lands of the United States so long 

 as game may be found thereon and so long as peace subsists among the whites and 

 Indians on the borders of the hunting districts. 



I have already quoted briefly from this decision. It was held by 

 the court that the State of Wyoming was admitted into the Union 

 on an equality and with all of the powers of the other States. The 

 court said: 



The power of all the States to regulate the killing of game within their borders will 

 not be gainsaid, yet, if the treaty applies to the unoccupied land of the United States 

 in the State of Wyoming, that State would be bereft of such power since each isolated 



