136 King*s Property in Game. [Ch.VIII. that these animals belong to the King as bona vacantia^ and as having no other owner, appears also very unsatisfactory. The general rule seems to be that bona vacantia only belong to the King in certain instances^ particularly defined by the common law, and in which certain valuable and distinguished articles are expressly selected and set apart for the King, as worthy his acceptance and necessary to support, and espe- cially suitable to his royal dignity : as in the case of swans, whales and sturgeons, gold and silver mines, treasure trove, waifs, estrays and wrecks, which will be particularly noticed hereafter. In cases in which the royal right to bona vacantia is not particularly pointed out, the first occupant or finder becomes entitled («}. It is also worthy of remark, that no judicial determina- tion in favour of the King's exclusive property in game is to be met with : on the contrary there are various dicta and de- cisions sustaining the principle that game is common pro- perty (6). So universal a silence on such a point is by no means a weak argument against this royal claim to an exclu- sive property : nor is it easily reconciled with the admitted doctrine that his subjects may acquire an exclusive right to wild animals by reclaiming them, &c. (c). If the King have this exclusive property there is no principle for holding that it may be divested by the wrongful act of a third person, to which the Crown is not a party. There seems to be no inconsistency in supposing that though the King may possess the right to go on his subjects' lands to kill game, and the power in some cases of enlarging and in others of restraining the exercise of the natural right to take it, still the subject may possess concurrently "doith the King the right of acquisition by reducing game into his possession. Most of the writers on the law of occupancy find a difficulty in reconciling the usurped appropriation of wild animals by any one exclusively, with the general freedom of manucap- tion, given by the laws of nature, and confirmed by the laws (a) Strange, 505. 1 Bla. Com. 295, 202. Bro. Ab. tit. Propertie. F. N. B. -298, 9. 2 Ibid. 259. 4 Burr. 2402. ; 197. 11 Co. 87. 4 Inst. 303. 2 Dla. But see Bro. ab Prerog. pi. 12. Com. 419, note 10, by Christian. Hawk. (/;) See the references in 1 Chitty on P. C. c.33. s. 29. Game Laws, 3, note h. Year Book, 17 (r) See 2 Bla, Com. 391. Ed»«.2i 53S. Keilw. 30, 158. Manw. 6 of
