32 WILD ANIMALS. 



was there held that where to a boat-load of oyster shells de- 

 posited in a river germs of oysters floating in the water 

 attached themselves and in about two years developed into 

 marketable oysters, they were the property of him who de- 

 posited the shells. ^^^ 



Where oysters were planted in navigable waters opposite 

 the defendant's land, but the buoys marking the bed were car- 

 ried away and not replaced for several years, it was held that 

 there were not sufficient indicia of ownership and control by 

 the person who planted them, to maintain his qualified prop- 

 erty or enable him to maintain an action against the defend- 

 ant for taking them. "Although we consider the case of Fleet 

 1'. Hegeman [supra] as an authorit)^ which we are bound 

 to follow, still it seems to us that the court overlooked the 

 idea that the principle established by them, if carried out, will 

 in effect authorize an exclusive appropriation of public navi- 

 gable waters for fishing purposes ; for there is no limit fixed 

 to the extent to which an individual can make his oyster beds 

 and so long as he has oysters there no other person can law- 

 fully plant his in the same bed ; so that the result might be the 

 exclusive appropriation by a few individuals of all the navi- 

 gable waters capable of being thus appropriated. In the 

 case of Arnold v. Mundy [6 N. J. L. i], which arose in a 

 neighboring State, the court felt the full force of this diiBculty 

 and they held an individual could not acquire an exclusive 

 right to any oyster bed, even by a grant from the State ; and 

 that the only way in which he could acquire even a temporary 

 enjoyment must be by a lease from the sovereign power for 

 a reasonable toll or rent; and that, too, as an exercise of the 

 jus rcgitim for the common benefit of every individual cit- 

 zen." "3 



But mingling oysters with others of natural growth or 

 owned by other persons is not sufficient to vest property. It 



'" Grace v. Willets, so N. J. L. 414. 



'" Brinckerhoff ». Starkins, ii Barb. (N. Y.) 248, 253. 



