PREFACE. 



There is, in the author's opinion, natural cause for wonder 

 why, at a time when of making many law-books there is no 

 end, the large and important subject exploited in the present 

 volume has been almost wholly disregarded. For just 

 as the law of real property differs from that of personal 

 property as dealing with what is immovable and indestructi- 

 ble, so the law of animate differs from that of inanimate prop- 

 erty as dealing with powers of consciousness, volition and 

 reproduction, and liability to sufifering and death, — a distinc- 

 tion far more significant in science and philosophy, however 

 it may be in jurisprudence, than that existing in the former 

 case. As a matter of fact, these powers and liabilities in ani- 

 mal life form the basis of an elaborate system of rights and 

 responsibilities which may be termed with perfect propriety 

 the Law of Animals. The elements of this law have, hitherto, 

 lain more or less concealed in numberless statutes, reports, 

 digests and text-books. Hardly an index of any scope can 

 be found in which the title "Animals" does not occur, ac- 

 companied by various cross-references. And yet, so far as 

 the present writer has been able to ascertain, no efifort has 

 ever been made to work these scattered elements into an or- 

 ganic structure. It is hoped, therefore, that this treatise may 

 serve to the accomplishment of such an end. 



It must be premised that, animals being personal property, 

 the whole law governing such property is applicable, of 

 course, to them, but it is only such particular portions of that 

 law as relate distinctly to their pecuHar qualities that can be 

 called, with any technical accuracy, the Law of Animals. 

 Matters unconnected with their natures, dispositions and 



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