Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/314

 298 potremo coram eccleia vel judicio: and the pace of a year was allowed for the owner to reclaim his property. If the owner claims them within the year and day, he mut pay the charges of finding, keeping, and proclaiming them. The king or lord has no property till the year and day paed: for if a lord keepeth an etray three quarters of a year, and within the year it trayeth again, and another lord getteth it, the firt lord cannot take it again. Any beat may be an etray, that is by nature tame or reclaimable, and in which there is a valuable property, as heep, oxen, wine, and hores, which we in general call cattle; and o Fleta defines it, pecus vagans, quod nullus petit, equitur, vel advocat. For animals upon which the law ets no value, as a dog or cat, and animals ferae naturae, as a bear or wolf, cannot be conidered as etrays. So wans may be etrays, but not any other fowl ; whence they are aid to be royal fowl. The reaon of which ditinction eems to be, that, cattle and wans being of a reclaimed nature, the owner's property in them is not lot merely by their temporary ecape; and they alo, from their intrinic value, are a ufficient pledge for the expene of the lord of the franchie in keeping them the year and day. For he that takes an etray is bound, o long as he keeps it, to find it in proviions and keep it from damage ; and may not ue it by way of labour, but is liable to an action for o doing. Yet he may milk a cow, or the like, for that tends to the preervation, and is for the benefit of the animal.

the particular reaons before given why the king hould have the everal revenues of royal fih, hipwrecks, treaure-trove, waifs, and etrays, there is alo one general reaon which holds for them all; and that is, becaue they are bona vacantia, or goods in which no one ele can claim a property. And therefore by the law of nature they belonged to the firt occupant or Rh