— Also termed right of common. Pl. profits à prendre. Cf. EASEMENT. [Cases: Licenses 43. C.J.S. Easements § 9; Licenses § 88.]
“A profit à prendre has been described as ‘a right to take something off another person’s land.’ This is too wide; the thing taken must be something taken out of the soil, i.e., it must be either the soil, the natural produce thereof, or the wild animals existing on it; and the thing taken must at the time of taking be susceptible of ownership. A right to ‘hawk, hunt, fish, and fowl’ may thus exist as a profit, for this gives the right to take creatures living on the soil which, when killed, are capable of being owned. But a right to take water from a spring or a pump, or the right to water cattle at a pond, may be an easement but cannot be a profit; for the water, when taken, was not owned by anyone nor was it part of the soil.” Robert E. Megarry & M.P. Thompson, A Manual of the Law of Real Property 375–76 (6th ed. 1993).
