and he then dropped it and a game-animal was wounded by the knife; or a sheep brushed against it while still in his hand, so that its windpipe or esophagus was severed; or a dog went off on its own initiative and made the kill—the meat is not lawful. The same applies, on the stronger view, when a dog breaks loose, its master urges it on, and its speed increases. If an arrow hits the quarry with the help of a gust of wind, the meat is lawful. If, however, one looses an arrow merely to test its force or at a target, and a game-animal happens to cross its path and is killed, the meat is, on the sounder opinion, unlawful. If he shoots at what he thinks is a stone but it proves to be game, or he shoots into a herd of gazelle and strikes one, the animal is lawful; and if he aims at a particular one but another is hit instead, that too is, on the predominant view, lawful. Should both the dog and the quarry disappear from sight and he later find the quarry dead, it is unlawful; likewise, if the dog first wounds it and then vanishes, and he subsequently finds it dead, it is—according to the preponderant view—unlawful.
Section
One acquires ownership of game by seizing it with the hand; by inflicting a lethal wound; by rendering it incapable of escape through a disabling injury or a broken wing; by its falling into a net he has set; or by driving it into a narrow place from which it cannot flee. If game happens to wander onto his land and becomes within his power because it is mired in mud or the like, he does not own it, according to the sounder opinion. Once ownership is established, it is not lost by the animal’s escape, nor—on the stronger view—by the owner’s releasing it.
If his pigeons migrate to someone else’s loft, the latter must return them. When the two flocks intermingle and it becomes hard to tell them apart, neither owner may validly sell or gift any of the birds to a third party, though the original owner may do so, on the sounder opinion. If he sells both flocks together while their number is known and their individual value equal, the sale is valid; otherwise it is not.
If two hunters wound the same quarry successively, and the second is the one who delivers the fatal or disabling blow before the first, the animal belongs to the second. If the first is the one who kills it—or even merely incapacitates it—it belongs to him; and if the second then finishes it off by cutting both the windpipe and the esophagus, the meat is lawful, but he must compensate the first for any diminution in value caused by the slaughter. Should the second kill it without cutting both passages, or neither finish it off and it dies from the combined wounds, the meat is unlawful and the second is liable to the first.
If they wound it simultaneously and both inflict a fatal or disabling injury, they share ownership. If only one of them kills or incapacitates it before the other, the animal belongs to that hunter alone. But if one kills it and the other incapacitates it and it is not known which injury came first, then—according to the official school position—the meat is unlawful.