THE WARREN 53 



take 'beasts and fowls of warren' within certain 

 limits, and to prevent others from killing or taking 

 them, even on lands of which they are the free- 

 holders. 



As to what species are, or were, included amongst 

 ' beasts and fowls of warren ' there is some little con- 

 flict of opinion. Manwood, in his 'Treatise and 

 Discourse of the Lawes of the Forrest' (the first 

 edition of which was printed in black letter in 1598), 

 asserts that this expression included the hare, the 

 coney, the pheasant and the partridge, 'and none 

 other,' justifying this definition from the ' Register of 

 Writs,' and ' Book of Entries,' which show that in 

 every case in which an action was brought by any 

 grantee of free warren against a trespasser, the state- 

 ment of claim invariably ran ' et lepores, cuniculos, 

 phasianos, et perdices cepit et asportavit.' He was 

 quite clear, therefore, that the ' beasts and fowls of 

 warren' were limited to these four species. In 

 Coke's report of Sir Francis Barrington's case (8 Rep. 

 138) the same definition is given ; but in his treatise 

 upon Littleton the Lord Chief Justice enlarges con- 

 siderably, as though a much longer Hst of species 

 was allowed in his day. He says : ' There be both 

 beasts and fowls of the warren; beasts, as hares, 

 coneys and roes (called in records capreoli) ; fowls of 



