168 THE RABBIT 



Poachers will sometimes capture in one night with 

 the long net more rabbits than they can carry away. 

 They will accordingly be compelled to hide them, 

 and remove them subsequently as best they may. If 

 they escape detection when capturing them, but are 

 caught while removing them, the rabbits being then 

 dead, it becomes a question whether the offence is 

 one of larceny or not. The point was decided in the 

 case of Regina v. Lewis Townley, reported in The 

 Field of April 29, 187 1. A poacher, who had assisted 

 in taking 126 rabbits which were concealed with 400 

 yards of netting, was subsequently caught removing 

 them, and was prosecuted and convicted of larceny 

 for stealing them. But on appeal, the Court for the 

 Consideration of Crown Cases Reserved quashed the 

 conviction on the ground that the act of killing and 

 removing was continuous, and that that which was 

 not larceny in its inception could not be so in its 

 natural fulfilment of the original intention. 



On the other hand, if the offender had been charged 

 with poaching and convicted, the conviction would 

 probably have been affirmed. This is shown by the 

 case of Horn v. Raine.' In this case, the poacher 

 Raine, standing in his own allotment, fired over the 

 wall at a grouse that was sitting on Lord Westbury's 

 ' Law Times, July 16, 1898. 



