Note 280 — Chapter III · (continued 3)

According to the maxims of English jurisprudence, the common law consists of general customs so long established that "the memory of man runneth not to the contrary." In other words, long custom makes law. In new countries, the change of circumstances creates new customs, and, in time, new law, without the aid of legislation. Had the American colonists observed a more sparing economy in the treatment of their woods, a new code of customary forest law would have sprung up and acquired the force of a statute. Popular habit was fast elaborating the fundamental principles of such a code, when the rapid increase in the value of timber, in consequence of the reckless devastation of the woodlands, made it the interest of the proprietors to interfere with this incipient system of forest jurisprudence, and appeal to the rules of English law for the protection of their woods. The courts have sustained these appeals, and forest property is now legally as inviolable as any other, though common opinion still combats the course of judicial decision on such questions.

In the United States, swarms of honey bees, on leaving the parent hive, often take up their quarters in hollow trees in the neighboring woods. By the early customs of New England, the finder of a "bee tree" on the land of another owner was regarded as entitled to the honey by right of discovery; and as a necessary incident of that right, he might cut the tree, at the proper season, without asking permission of the proprietor of the soil. The quantity of "wild honey" in a tree was often large, and "bee hunting" was so profitable that it became almost a regular profession. The "bee hunter" sallied forth with a small box containing honey and a little vermilion. The bees which were attracted by the honey marked themselves with the vermilion, and hence were more readily followed in their homeward flight, and recognized when they returned a second time for booty. When loaded with spoil, this insect returns to his hive by the shortest route, and hence a straight line is popularly called in America a "bee line." By such a line, the hunter followed the bees to their sylvan hive, marked the tree with his initials, and returned to secure his prize in the autumn. When the right of the "bee hunter" was at last disputed by the land proprietors, it was with difficulty that judgments could be obtained, in inferior courts, in favor of the latter, and it was only after repeated decisions of the higher legal tribunals that the superior right of the owner of the soil was at last acquiesced in.