mischievous disposition of his dog to do harm. On the other hand consider the domestic cat and its feline ways. Exceptions must be made for pussy. As a learned court re marked, cats are rather harbored than owned, they are not subject to direction, cannot be put under the same restraint as most other domestic animals; to a certain extent they may be regarded as still undomesticated and their predatory habits as but a rem nant of their wild nature. In consequence, when pussy crawls up on the porch of a neighbor and knocks down a bird-cage and makes an appetizing meal of a pet canary, the court is constrained to ask the momen tous question, is a man to be held respon sible for the act of his cat in killing his neighbor's canary-bird because he knows that the cat's natural propensity would lead him to do so? It is answered by holding that the cat's appetite for birds is a remnant of its wild nature that cannot be restrained by its owner, and for which its owner is not liable. It is well that such is the kw. A pretty lot of damages the owners of cats would be paying for nights made hideous and the consequent loss of sleep and etcete ras if courts held that the owners were liable in damages because they knew of the cat's natural propensity to sing their oratorios at night. Birds, emblems of freedom, can so far lose their liberty as to become the subject of valuable property. They may gain their freedom by escaping and own themselves again, or belong to him who shall bring them into his dominion and control. On the other hand the escape and recapture may be so near together that the one capturing is only able to retake by the first owner having brought the bird under control; in conse quence the first owner will not lose his ownership in the bird. A southern court has said, should a canary-bird, a mocking bird, parrot or any other bird escape from its cage to the street or to a neighboring
house, to say the first person who caught it would be its owner is wholly at variance with our views of right and justice. Doves and pigeons, to be a subject of property, must be confined. If at liberty and they be taken or killed, the owner can not claim damages nor hold the party cap turing them to answer the charge of larceny. If they fly to some farmer's field and in dulge in a feast of grain, the owner cannot be held for the known natural propensity of his birds to eat grain. An exception has been made however to the carrier-pigeon. Confined or in flight it is a subject of prop erty. This qualified ownership in birds led a defendant to the charge of larceny of a bird and cage to plead that the bird was not such a species of property for which he could be held in larceny. In other words, to steal a bird was not larceny, for the bird was of a wild nature,' hence no one's property, and to steal it was not to steal from anyone. The court, evidently with little if any admiration for such fine-spun reason ing, remarked that the value of the bird was perhaps more than ten times that of the cage, and to hold that larceny might be committed of the cage but not of the bird would be neither good law nor common sense. The ownership of animals of a wild nature must be such that they are brought into the actual power of the possessor. The fish you see dangling on the end of your line, the fish you almost pull out of the water, or half way, to see them fall back — the biggest fish of a summer's out ing that become finally caught as told to your friends — these do not count, you do not own them unless actually caught, as a court was compelled to declare. The plaintiff was fishing and had cast a seine around a shoal of mackerel through which the fish could not escape in the opinion of experi enced persons; but before the catch was
