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.t . . more than a hopeful fisherman or hunter, has title to these creatures until they are reduced to possession by skillful capture. Ibid.; Geer v. Connecticut, 161 U.S. 519, 539-40 (1896) (Field, J., dissenting). The "ownership" language of cases such as those cited by appellant must be understood as no more than a 19th-century legal fiction expressing "the importance to its people that a State have power to preserve and regulate the exploitation of an important resource." Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U.S., at 401; see also Takahashi v. Fish & Game Comm'n, 334 U.S. 410, 420-421 (1948). . But groundwater does not migrate as much or as fast as, e.g., birds. In some basins, it migrates only a little or not at all. Since Sporhase relies so heavily on Se coast Products and Toomer, and since those cases prominently feature the issue or mi~ration (or, speaking more generally, movement), this distinction should make a differen~e. A state should be able to argue that, to the extent a certain body of groundwater rJmains more or less stable beneath its territory, it exercises a degree of ownership and ontrol over that water which exceeds that exercised over wild animals. Such water as, in effect, been "reduced to possession by skillful capture" at the hands of nature herse f. 8 As for surface water, state control over it has long been affirmed by the S preme Court. According to Martin v. Waddell, the States stand in the place of the king with respect to controlling navigable waters. The only limit on their power comes fro steps the federal government might take: [f1or when the revolution took place, the people of each state became themselves sovereign; and in that character hold the absolute right to all their navigable waters, and the soils under them for their own common use, subject only to the rights since surrendered by the constitution to the general government. . And when the people of New Jersey took possession of the reins of government, and took into their own hands the powers of sovereignty, the prerogatives and regalities which before belonged either to the crown or the parliament, became immediately and rightfully vested in the state. Martin v. Waddell, 41 U.S. 367,410,416 (1842) (emphasis added) (J. Taney writi g). Three years after Martin v. Waddell, the Court was called upon to decide "whether Alabama is entitled to the shores of the navigable waters, and the soil under them, within her limits." Pollard v. Hagan, 44 U.S. 212, 225 (1845). Here, th Court extended the rights of the thirteen colonies to the states subsequently admitted to the union. Noting that the territory in question had originally been claimed by Geor ia, the Court held: 8 Even in an interstate basin, one can imagine the basin being measured hydrologically and control ver its water being assigned to the pertinent states according to its location. Ifthirty per cent ofthe water n the basin lies under a certain state, then that state would have control over that percentage of the basin' water. . 14