Definition
Volucres is a Latin term used in property law to denote wild birds, particularly wild fowl and waterfowl. The term appears in the law of animals as a subcategory of ferae naturae — creatures that exist in a state of nature and are not subject to private ownership while at liberty. Because volucres are by nature wild and free-ranging, no person holds a continuing property right in them simply by virtue of their presence on land. A qualified or special property interest may arise through capture or through the exercise of lawful pursuit, but it ceases if the animal escapes and returns to its natural liberty.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Not a current English word; Latin plural of volucer, meaning "flying" or "winged," and by extension "birds."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not listed as an independent entry; the root relates to the Latin concept of flight or winged creatures.
Editorial note: The legal term carries no meaningful divergence from its Latin root — it simply means birds in the wild-animal sense. The gap worth noting is between the casual sense of "birds" (which might imply any domesticated or caged bird) and the strict legal sense, which applies only to birds existing in a state of natural liberty and therefore outside ordinary private ownership.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Volucres appeared in early common law and civil law sources alongside analogous categories of wild animals:
- Ferae (wild beasts generally): four-footed animals in a state of nature.
- Volucres (wild fowl): birds in a state of natural liberty, including waterfowl.
- Pisces (fish): wild fish in open waters.
These categories collectively comprised the class of animals in which no one held a permanent property right, and they were governed by the same doctrinal rules regarding capture, pursuit, and escape.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering volucres in historical legal sources should treat it as a term of art within the doctrine of ferae naturae, not as a freestanding concept with its own independent body of law. Its significance is almost entirely embedded in broader property law discussions of wild animals, qualified property, and the rights of landowners versus hunters or the public.
The primary trap for modern researchers is assuming that legal rules about volucres map cleanly onto modern wildlife law. They do not. Early common law treated wild birds primarily as a matter of private property and possession; modern wildlife law in most jurisdictions treats wild animals as held in trust by the state, a framework that displaces much of the common law reasoning that gave volucres its doctrinal role.
Corpus connections to watch: discussions of volucres in historical sources will typically appear alongside ratione soli (the qualified right of a landowner to take game on their own land), ferae naturae as the parent doctrine, and manucaption (the act of taking by hand, i.e., capture, which vests a temporary property interest). A citation to 11 East 571 — the report referenced in Bouvier — is the anchor case in English law for the proposition that waterfowl are classed as ferae naturae and therefore subject to these rules.
Jurisdictional divergence matters here: civilian legal systems (Roman and continental) organized the same material under slightly different taxonomies, and researchers working across common law and civil law sources may find the categorical boundaries drawn differently.
WHY IT MATTERS IN RESEARCH (continued — source traps)
Bouvier's entry is brief and does not develop the doctrine. Researchers who need the full analytical framework must go beyond the dictionary entry to treatise discussions of ferae naturae, and to the underlying case law. Do not treat Bouvier's definition as a complete statement of the law on wild birds.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary defines volucres simply as "Wild fowl; water fowl," citing 11 East 571. The entry is minimal and functions as a pointer rather than an exposition of doctrine. Bouvier's placement of the term reflects the influence of civil law taxonomy on early American legal vocabulary — the organization of animals into ferae, volucres, and pisces derives from Roman law classifications that passed through Bracton and Blackstone into the common law tradition.
No other historical dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus provide a separate entry for the term. The substance of the doctrine appears instead under ferae naturae and related entries. The brevity of the Bouvier entry is itself informative: by the mid-nineteenth century, volucres was a recognized term of art that educated lawyers were expected to connect to the broader ferae naturae framework without extensive elaboration.
Jurisdictional Note
The doctrinal framework that volucres inhabits — the law of ferae naturae and qualified property in wild animals — was broadly shared across common law jurisdictions, but modern statutes in the United States, United Kingdom, and elsewhere have substantially displaced it. State and federal wildlife law now governs rights in wild birds, and the classical common law categories have largely descriptive rather than operative force in contemporary practice.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: FERAE NATURAE