716 
FEO 
F E R 
give notice of the translation of the feud from 
one hand to another ; because if the posses- 
sion might be changed by the private agree- 
ment of the parties, such secret contracts 
would make it difficult and uncertain to dis- 
cover in whom the estate was lodged, and 
consequently the lord would be at a loss of 
whom to demand his services, and strangers 
equally perplexed to discover against whom 
to commence their actions for the prosecu- 
tion and recovery of their right. To pre- 
vent, therefore, this uncertainty, live cere- 
mony of livery and seisin was instituted. 2 
Bac. Abr. 482. 
Of the several sorts of livery . — The livery 
in deed is the actual tradition of the land, 
and is made either by the delive ry of a 
branch of a tree or a turf of the land, or some 
other tiling, in the name of ail the lands and 
tenements contained in the deed ; and it may 
be made by words only, without the delivery 
of any thing; as if the feoffor upon the land, 
or at the door of the house, says to the feof- 
fee, “ I am content that you should enjoy 
this land according to the deed.” This is a 
good livery to pass the freehold. Co. Lit. 
48. a. 
The livery within view, or the livery in 
law, is when the feoffor is not actually on the 
nJaud or in the house, but being in sight of it, 
says to the feoffee, “ I give you yonder house 
or land ; go and enter into the same, and take 
{ lossession of it accordingly.” This livery in 
aw cannot be given or received by an attor- 
ney, but only by tl»e parties themselves. Pol- 
Jex, 47. 
But this sort of livery is not perfect to carry 
the freehold, till an actual entry made by the 
feoffee, because the possession is not actually 
delivered to him, but only a licence or power 
given him by the feoffor to take possession 
of it ; and therefore if either the feoffor or 
feoffee dies before livery, and entry made by 
the feoffee, the livery within the view be- 
comes ineffectual and void ; for if the feoffor 
dies before entry, the feoffee cannot after- 
wards enter, because then the land imme- 
diately descends upon his heir, and conse- 
quently no person can take possession of his 
land without an authority delegated from 
him who is the proprietor; nor can the heir 
of the feoffee enter, because he is not the 
person to whom the feoffor intended to con 
vey his land, nor had he an authority from 
the feoffor to take the possession: besides, if 
the heir of the feoffee was admitted to take 
possession after his father’s death, he would 
come in as a purchaser ; whereas he was 
mentioned in the feoffment to take as the 
representative of his ancestor, which he can- 
not do, since the estate was never vested in 
his ancestor. Co. Lit. 48. b. 
A feoffment cannot be made of a thing of 
which livery cannot be given, as of incorpo- 
real inheritances, such as rent, advowson, 
common, &c. 2 Rol. 1. /. 20. ; though it be 
an advowson, &c. in gross. 21 Id. 
A man may either give or receive livery 
in deed, by letter of attorney ; for since a 
contract is no more than the consent of a 
man’s mind to a thing, where that consent or 
concurrence appears, it would be most un- 
reasonable to oblige each person to be present 
at the execution ot the contract, since it may 
as well be performed by any other person 
delegated for that purpose by the parties to 
the contract. Co. Lit. 52. 
There arc few or r.o persons excluded 
from exercising this power of delivering 
seisin ; for monks, infants, femes covert, per- 
sons attainted, outlawed, excommunicated, 
villains, aliens, &c. may be attorneys ; for 
this being only a naked authority, the exe- 
cution of it can be attended with no manner 
of prejudice to the persons under these inca- 
pacities or disabilities, or to any other per- 
son who by law may claim any interest of 
such disabled persons alter their death. Co. 
Lit. 52. a. See Fine. 
FEOFFOR and Feoffee. Feoffor is he 
who infeoffs or makes a feoffment to another 
of lands or tenements in fee simple ; and 
feoffee is the person infeoffed, or to whom 
the feoffment is made. See Feoffment. 
FER/E, in zoology, an order of quadru- 
peds, the distinguishing characters of which 
are, that all the animals belonging to it have 
fore-teeth conic, usually six in each jaw ; 
tusks longer ; grinders with conical projec- 
tions; feet with claws ; claws subulate; food, 
carcases, and preying on other animals. See 
Natural History, Zoology, &c. 
Fer?e naturje. Animals of a wild na- 
ture are those in which a man has not an 
absolute but only a qualified and limited pro- 
perty, which sometimes subsists, and at other 
times does not subsist. And this qualified 
property is obtained either by the art and 
industry of man, or the impotence of the 
animals themselves, or by special privilege. 
A qualified property may subsist in ani- 
mals force naturae, by the art and industry 
of man, either by his reclaiming and making 
them tame, or by so confining them that they 
cannot escape and use their natural liberty ; 
such as deer in a park, hares or conies in an 
enclosed warren, doves in a dovehouse, 
pheasants or partridges in a mew, hawks 
that are fed and commanded by the owner, 
and fish in a private pond or in trunks. 
'These are no longer the property of a man 
than while they continue in his keeping or 
actual possession; but if at any time they 
regain their natural liberty, his property in- 
stantly ceases, unless they have animum re- 
vertendi, which is only to be known by their 
usual custom of returning. 
A man may have a qualified property in 
animals fene naturae, by special privilege ; 
that is, he may have the privilege of hunt- 
ing, taking, and killing them, in exclusion of 
other persons: under which head may be 
considered all those animals which come un- 
der the denomination of game. Here a 
man may have a transient property in these 
animals, so long as they continue within his 
liberty, and may restrain any strangers from 
taking them therein; but the instant they 
depart into another liberty, this qualified pro- 
perty ceases. 2 Black. 391. 
Larceny cannot be committed of things 
ferae naturae, while at their natural liberty ; 
but if they are made fit for food, and reduced 
to tameness, and known by the taker to be 
so, it may be larceny to take them. 1 Haw. 
94. See Game. 
FER de fourchette, in heraldry, a 
cross having at each end a forked iron, like 
that formerly used by soldiers to rest their 
musquets on. It differs from the cross four- 
ehe, the ends of which turn forked, whereas 
this has that sort of fork fixed ijpon the square 
end. 
FER 
FERENTARII, in Roman antiquity, were 
auxiliary troops, lightly armed ; their wea 
pons being a sword, bow, arrows, and a 
sling. 
FERLE, in Roman antiquity, holidays, 
or days upon which they abstained from 
work. 
The Romans had two kinds of ferine: l. 
'The public, common to all the people in 
general. 2. 'The private, which were only 
kept by some private families. 
The public feria: were fourfold : 1 . Stati- 
vas feria;, holidays which always fell out upon 
the same day of the month, and were marked 
in the calendar: of these the chief were the 
agonalia, carmeutaiia, and lupercalia. 2. 
Conceptivae feriae, holidays appointed every 
year upon certain or uncertain days by the 
magistrates or the pontiff: such were the 
Latins, paganalia, compitalia, &c. 3. Impe- 
rative feria?, holidays commanded or appoint- 
ed by the authority of the consuls or pre- 
tors: of this kind we may reckon the lecti- 
sternuim. 4. N undine, the days for fairs. 
The private feriae were either confined to 
private families or particular persons, as birth- 
days; and those expiations upon the tenth 
day after a person died in a house, called te- 
rie denicales. From this term our word fair 
seems to be derived. 
FERfA, in the Romish breviary, is ap- 
plied to the several days of the week: thus 
Monday is the feria seeunda, Tuesday the 
feria tertia, though these days are not work- 
ing days, but holidays. The occasion of this 
was, that the first Christians used to keep 
the Easter-week holy, calling Sunday the 
prima feria. See. whence the term feria was 
given to the days of every week. But be- 
sides these, they have extraordinary feria?, 
viz. the last three days of passion-week, the 
two days following Easter day, and the se- 
cond feria? of rogation. 
FERMENTATION. During the spon- 
taneous decomposition which vegetable sub- 
stances undergo, it is obvious that the simple 
substances of which they are composed must 
unite together in a different manner from 
that in which they were formerly united, 
and form a new set of compounds which did 
not formerly exist. The specific gravity of 
these new compounds is almost always less 
than that of the old body. Some of them 
usually liy off in the state of gas or vapour. 
Hence the odour that vegetable bodies emit 
during the whole time that they are running 
through the series of their changes. When 
the odour is very offensive or noxious, the 
spontaneous decomposition is called putre- 
faction; but when the odour is not offensive, 
or when any of the new compounds formed 
is applied to useful purposes, the sponta- 
neous decomposition is called fermentation. 
The term is supposed by some to have ori- 
ginated from the intestine motion which is 
always perceptible while vegetable substances 
are fermenting; while by others it is derived 
from the heat which in these cases is always 
generated. It is now very often applied to 
all the spontaneous changes which vegetable 
bodies undergo, without regard to the pro- 
ducts. By fermentation, then, are now meant 
all the spontaneous changes which take place 
in vegetable substances after they are sepa- 
rated from the living plant. See Chemistry. 
Fermentation never takes place unless ve- 
getable substances contain a certain portion 
