To many the distinction thus created, by considering all game as wild animals, appears too theoretical; and no doubt it is a question for zoologists rather than for lawyers to decide, whether there really be in animals any such permanent and invariable character as to justify such a universal distinction. There is the strongest presumption that all our domesticated animals were at one time _feræ_; and it is rather a difficult task to show reason for considering some classes as "_indomitabiles_," when we see the reindeer, of a tribe naturally the most shy of man, living in the hut of his Lapland master--and when we recollect that among birds, the duck, turkey, and peacock, with us the most civilised and familiar of poultry, are elsewhere most indubitable _feræ_ at this very moment. It has been argued that the commoner kinds of game, under the system of rearing and feeding now so general, are scarcely more shy or migratory in their habits than those animals which the law contrasts with them as _mansuefactæ_, and therefore regards as property: that even when straying in the fields, we may as reasonably impute to them the _animus revertendi_--the instinct of returning to their haunts and coverts, as to pigeons and bees which the law for this reason retains under its protection, though abroad from their cots or hives; that the common objection as to the difficulty of identifying game, is one which applies as strongly to many other subjects recognised as vested in an owner; and finally, that, being now in reality valuable articles of commerce, these classes of animals should cease to be viewed as incapable of becoming property. It is difficult to gainsay the premises on which this proposal is built: and if we look to analogy, it cannot be doubted that the invariable tendency of civilisation is towards the restriction of the category of _res nullius_, and by art and culture to subject all products of the earth to the use, and consequently to the possession of man. But, apart from this speculative view of the subject--it seems to us that, while common opinion is unprepared for so fundamental a change in the law of Scotland, the alteration proposed would not in practice improve the position of any of those classes who are affected by the operation of the present game laws, nor materially obviate any of the bad effects usually ascribed to them.