CAPTURE, ETC., IN THE CLOSE SEASON. 563 



said: "It is said that it would be a strong thing for the legis- 

 lature of the United Kingdom to interfere with the rights of 

 foreigners to kill foreign birds. But it may well be that the 

 true and only mode of protecting British wild fowl from indis- 

 criminate slaughter, as well as of protecting other British 

 interests, is by interfering directly with the proceedings of 

 foreign persons. The object is to prevent British wild fowl 

 from being improperly killed and sold under pretence of 

 their being imported fi-om abroad." ^® 



In a later case, under a statute prohibiting buying, selling 

 or having in possession any bird of game after the expiration 

 of ten days from the day on which it becomes unlawful to 

 kill or take "such birds of game," it was held that it was 

 not unlawful for a game-dealer to have in possession foreign 

 birds of the same kind, killed abroad and commercially con- 

 signed to England as articles of food. The court distin- 

 guishes Whitehead v. Smithers, supra, as, in that case, "there 

 is nothing ... in the section then before the court to limit 

 the latter part of it to the possession of a wild fowl which had 

 been recently unlawfully killed according to the eariier part 

 of the same section." ^^ It had been previously held under 

 the statutes 2 Geo. 3, c. 19, and 39 Geo. 3, c. 34, that one 

 having in his possession a partridge killed before the close 

 time was not guilty of the ofifense.^" And a licensed dealer 

 in game is not prohibited by statute i and 2 Wm.4, c. 32, from 

 entering into a contract made in the season to deliver live 

 game out of a mew or breeding-place at any time including 

 the close season.*^ 



In New York it was held that the legislature had full power 

 to pass an act prohibiting having possession of game birds, 

 though they were killed at a time when by the act such kill- 

 ing was not forbidden, or brought from another State where 



=■ Whitehead v. Smithers, 2 C. P. D. 553- 



-' Guyer v. Reg., 23 Q. B. D. 100. And see $3 J. P. 433; 23 Ir. L. T. 421. 



'" Simpson v. Unwtn, 3 B. & Ad. 134. 



" Porritt V. Baker, 10 Ex. 759. 



