ORAL ARGUMENT OP HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 65 



the statement of the adverse party, and where it contains any admission 

 that is favourable to us, I have the right to use it as such. Where it 

 contains any other statement, I shall have an opportunity to show before 

 I get through, or rather all the way along whenever I deal with questions 

 of fact, just how far it is reliable as evidence. If the case had remained 

 where it remained at the beginning of this Counter Case, nothing more 

 would need to have been added, because the British Commissioners, as 

 you will see, admit the whole point for which 1 have been contending?, 

 and coincide generally with the American claim, and with the great 

 body of evidence. 

 They say at section 197 page 32: 



Respecting the migration-range of the fur-seals which resort to the Commander 

 Islands, to Robben Ishxnd, and in small numbers to several places in the Kurile Islands, 

 as more fully noted in subsequent pages, comparatively little has been recorded ; but 

 the result of inquiries made in various directions, when brought together, are suffi- 

 cient to enable its general character and the area which it covers to be outlined. 

 The deficiency in intoriiiation for the Asiatic coasts depends on the fact that pelagic 

 sealing, as understood on the coast of America, is there xiractically unknown, while 

 the people inhabiting the coast and its adjacent islands do not, like the Indians and 

 Aleuts of the opposite side of the North Pacific, naturally venture far to sea for 

 hunting purposes. 



ivTow I call ijarticnlar attention to this: 



The facts already cited in connection with the migration of the seals on the east 

 side of the Pacific, show that these animals enter and leave Bchriug Sea almost 

 entirely by the eastern pusses through the Aleutian chain, and that only under excep- 

 tional circumstances, and under stress of weather, are some young seals, while on 

 their way south, driven as far to the west as Atka Island. No large bodies of migrating 

 seals are known to pass near Attn Island, the westernmost of the Aleutians, and no 

 young seals have ever within memory been seen there. These circumstances with 

 others which it is not necessary to detail here, are sufficient to demonstrate that the 

 main migration- routes of the seals frequenting the Commander Islands do not touch 

 the Aleutian chain, and there is every reason to believe that although the seals become 

 more or less commingled in Behring Sea during the summer, the migration-routes of 

 the two sides of the North Pacific are essentially distinct. 



I refer now to section 453 of this document on page 80: 



The inquiries and observations now made, however, enable it to be shown that the 

 fur-seals of the two sides of the North Pacific belong in the main to practically dis- 

 tinct migration-tracts, both of which are elsewhere traced out and described, and it 

 is believed that while to a certain extent transfers of individual seals or of small 

 groups occur, probably every year, between the Pribilof and Commander tribes, that 

 this is exceptional rather than uoruial. It is not believed that any voluntary or 

 systematic movement of fur-seals takes place from one group of breeding islands to 

 the other, but it is probable that a continued harassing of the seals upon one group 

 might result in a course of years in a corresponding gradual accession to the other 

 group. 



In what I have further to say on this subject, I hope, Sir, that you 

 will bear this language in mind. I will also read 454: 



There is uo evidence whatever to show that any considerable branch of the seal tribe 

 which has its winter home off the coast of British (Columbia resorts in summer to the 

 Commander Islands, whether voluntarily or led thither in pursuit of food-fishes, and 

 inquiries along the Aleutian chain show that no regular migration route follows its 

 direction, whether to the north or south of the islands. It is certain that the young 

 seals in going southward from the Pribilof Islands only rarely get drifted as far to 

 the westward as the 172tu1 meridian of west longitude, while Attn Island, on tlie 173rd 

 meridian east, is never visited by young seals, and therefore lies between the regular 

 autumn migration-routes of the seals going from the Pribylof and Comnumder Islands 

 respectively. 



If any difference between that and the i)roposition in regard to these 



seals, which is stated by the American Commissioners, by 1)^ Allen, 



and by a considerable number of witnesses 1 shall allude to hereafter, 



can be i)erceived, it is a difference that is not ijerceptible to me. Never- 



B a, PT XV 5 



