I'ROPERTY IN GAME. 13 



rabbits were one continuous act, and that such removal was 

 not larceny. So where a gamekeeper, not authorized to take 

 or kill rabbits for his own use, took and killed wild rabbits 

 upon his master's land and sold them, and the taking, killing, 

 removing and selling were parts of one continuous action, it 

 was held that such gamekeeper could not be convicted of 

 embezzlement.*^ And the same rule would apply if the 

 servant of the receiver, a dealer in game, with knowledge of 

 the circumstances came and took away game killed by poach- 

 ers and designedly left for him upon the land.*® In the ar- 

 ticle already quoted*^ it is said: "In the case of the game- 

 keeper it is clear (since the taking and carrying away are ex 

 hypothesi one continuous act), that he has neither been guilty 

 of larceny, nor of embezzlement, which is only a species of 

 larceny: Reg. v. Read. If, however, the game had been 

 killed by his master or any other person not acting in concert 

 with the keeper, then since the game becomes the absolute 

 property of the land-owner and 'in his possession' so soon as 

 it falls dead upon his land, the keeper, if he dishonestly ap- 

 propriated it, would, we apprehend, be guilty of larceny." 



The following comments were made by the Law Times on 

 the case of Reg. v. Read, supra: "The effect of this decision 

 is undoubtedly that a gamekeeper may help himself to his 

 master's game ad libitum, provided he takes care to make his 

 killing and carrying away one continuous act, without ren- 

 dering himself liable to be punished criminally. Now there 

 may be many reasons why the law never intended that poach- 

 ers should be put upon the same footing as felons, but, what- 

 ever they may be, they clearly ought not to apply to game- 

 keepers. The moral difiference between a killing and taking 

 away of game by an ordinary poacher and a killing and 

 taking away by a man who is paid to see that no game is 

 killed and taken away is so great that it would be monstrous 



« Reg. V. Read, 3 Q- B. D. 131. 



" Per Blackburn, ]., in Reg. v. Townley, supra. 



" 46 J. P. 3. 



