Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/409

 Ch. 25. words, with the civil law, peaks Bracton : occupation, that is, hiving or including them, gives the property in bees; for, though a warm lights upon my tree, I have no more property in them till I have hived them, than I have in the birds which make their nets thereon; and therefore if another hives them, he hall be their proprietor: but a warm, which flie from and out of my hive, are mine o long as I can keep them in fight, and have power to purue them and in thee circumtances no one ele is intitled to take them. But it hath been alo aid, that with us the only ownerhip in bees is ratione oli; and the charter of the foret , which allows every freeman to be entitled to the honey found within his own woods, affords great countenance to this doctrine, that a qualified property may be had in bees, in conideration of the property of the oil whereon they are found.

all thee creatures, reclaimed from the wildnes of their nature, the property is not abolute, but defeaible: a property, that may be detroyed if they reume their antient wildnes, and are found at large. For if the pheaants ecape from the mew, or the fihes from the trunk, and are een wandering at large in their proper element, they become ferae naturae again; and are free and open to the firt occupant that has ability to eie them. But while they thus continue my qualified or defeaible property, they are as much under the protection of the law, as if they were abolutely and indefeaibly mine: and an action will lie againt any man that detains them from me, or unlawfully detroys them. It is alo as much felony by common law to teal uch of them as are fit for food, as it is to teal tame animals : but not o, if they are only kept for pleaure, curioity, or whim, as dogs, bears, cats, apes, parrots, and finging birds ; becaue their value is not intrinic, but depending only on the caprice of the owner : though it is uch an invaion of property as may Rh