ANIMALS OF A BASE NATURE

Definition

A common law classification describing animals that, although capable of being tamed or reclaimed from wildness, were considered too low or base in nature to be the subject of larceny. At common law, stealing an animal of a base nature was not a felony because the law declined to recognize such animals as property valuable enough to warrant criminal protection through the law of theft. This was a rule of criminal law, not of property law: a person could still acquire a qualified property interest in these animals by reclaiming or taming them, but the taking of such an animal by another person did not constitute larceny. The category included animals that might otherwise seem domesticated or useful. Dogs and cats were the most commonly cited examples, along with bears, foxes, apes, monkeys, and ferrets — animals capable of reclamation but regarded by the common law courts as lacking the dignity of horses, cattle, sheep, or other creatures whose theft was prosecutable as larceny.

Common Language

No Wiktionary or Webster's 1913 definition applies. "Base" in ordinary modern English suggests moral inferiority or low quality. In this legal context, "base nature" is a term of art describing the common law's categorical judgment about an animal's place in a hierarchy of property interests — it does not refer to the animal's behavior, dangerousness, or moral character. The phrase has no meaningful contemporary common usage outside of historical legal writing.

Common Confusion

This classification is sometimes conflated with the separate common law distinction between animals ferae naturae (wild by nature) and animals mansuetae naturae (tame or domesticated by nature). Animals of a base nature overlap with but are not identical to animals ferae naturae. A dog, for instance, is generally treated as a domestic animal for purposes of owner liability in tort, yet was historically classified as an animal of a base nature for purposes of larceny. The larceny rule turned on the law's valuation of the animal as property, not purely on its wild or tame character.

Why It Matters in Research

This term is almost entirely of historical and doctrinal significance. Researchers will encounter it primarily in three contexts: First, in historical criminal law materials, particularly treatises on larceny. Coke's Third Institute and Hale's Pleas of the Crown — cited directly in Black's — are the foundational sources. Any research into the development of theft offenses at common law, or into how property concepts shaped early criminal liability, will pass through this classification. Second, in tracing how animal property law evolved. The base nature rule was steadily eroded by statute. In England and in American states, legislatures progressively extended theft and malicious mischief statutes to cover dogs and other animals previously excluded. Researchers working in late 19th and early 20th century statutory materials should watch for explicit statutory overrides of the common law rule. Third, as a conceptual ancestor in animal law and tort research. The common law's reluctance to treat dogs and cats as full subjects of property had downstream effects on early negligence and strict liability doctrine for animal attacks. A dog owner's liability for a bite was historically shaped partly by the law's ambivalent treatment of dogs as property. Researchers connecting larceny doctrine to tort doctrine will find the base nature classification a useful doctrinal bridge. The Bouvier entry's citation string references liability for animals permitted to go at large — a separate but adjacent doctrinal stream confirming that the common law treated animals of a base nature as a cross-cutting category affecting both criminal and civil analysis.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's and Bouvier's agree on the core rule: these are animals reclaim-able from wildness but excluded from larceny by reason of their base nature. Black's cites Coke (3 Inst. 109) and Hale (1 Hale, P.C. 511–512) as primary authority. Bouvier's provides substantive examples — dogs, cats, bears, foxes, apes, monkeys, ferrets — giving the category more flesh. Both dictionaries treat this as settled common law doctrine rather than a contested principle. Neither source engages with how the rule aged against statutory reforms, which is a notable gap. By the time these dictionary editions were in wide use, many American jurisdictions had already modified or displaced the common law rule through dog licensing statutes and expanded larceny provisions. Researchers should not assume the historical dictionary entries reflect the law of any given jurisdiction at any given moment after the mid-19th century.

Jurisdictional Note

The base nature rule was a common law doctrine and therefore formally applicable across common law jurisdictions, but American states diverged significantly through statute. Many states enacted specific anti-cruelty and theft statutes expressly covering dogs and cats before the end of the 19th century, effectively abolishing the rule in the criminal context. English law similarly reformed through statute. This term is now largely obsolete as operative law but retains significance for historical research.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See: torts_211 — Specialized Tort Topics: Animal Attack Liability Beyond Strict Liability (Negligence-Based), The Law Mind Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia. The common law treatment of dogs and other base-nature animals as a distinct property category underlies historical analysis of owner liability standards in animal attack cases.

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