230 ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 



The same year Mr. Mowat, the Inspector of the Fisheries of Canada, 

 British Columbia — and this is taken from the 3rd volume of the Appen- 

 dix to the British Case, page 173, — reports: 



There were killed this year so far from 40,000 to 50,000 fur-seals which have been 

 tivken by schooners from Sau Francisco and Victoria. The greater number were 

 killed in Behring yea, and were nearly all cows or female seals. 



In 1892, Captain Shepard of the United States Revenue Marine — 

 and this is taken from the 2nd volume of tlie United States Appendix, 

 page 180 — says in liis depositions : 



I examined skins from the sealing vessels seized in 1887 and 1889, over 12,000 skins, 

 and of these at least two thirds or three-fourths were the skins of females. 



This is selected evidence out of much more to the same efi'ect. It 

 comes from men of the highest standing and position, in the majority of 

 cases British, and in tlie majority of cases official; and if this is true, it 

 becomes apparent tliat the proportion of females taken in the pelagic 

 catch in these years before any of the causes that are suggested by my 

 learned friends for the diminution in the number of males had at all 

 taken effect. These observations are in reply to your very pertinent 

 and proper question which I was very glad to have put. They form 

 my reply, and when I come to deal with that i)art of the case, we shall 

 utterly and completely refute upon the evidence in the Case the sug- 

 gestion that any such consequence came from any mismanagement of 

 the Islands. We shall show to begin with that it depends on nothing 

 that is reliable, and shall show, in the next place that it is over-whelm- 

 ingly contradicted by the evidence. 



But still dealing for a moment longer with the President's enquiry, 

 the pelagic sealing near the Eussian Islands is a new business. The 

 Islands never have been harrassed by pelagic sealing before. How 

 new it is will be ai^parent at a future stage of this case, when we come 

 to consider how much the Russians have made out of the zone they 

 have exacted from Great Britain where the seals are taken now. I 

 only say now that this was sealing where no pretence had ever arisen 

 of a scarcity of males, or of any cause which could produce a scarcity 

 of males, and yet, on these vessels, the average of females taken in 

 the pelagic catch by these schooners comes fully up to this. 



The President. — Is there not an explanation to be made as to sea- 

 sons and places of the catches in connexion with the sexes? 



Mr. Phelps. — No, I shall show you, when we come to Regulations, 

 where the seals are taken. 



The President. — But we are told that the females went in a herd 

 together separate from the bulls and even from the young ones, and 

 passed through certain places at certain seasons, and consequently 

 were not at other i^laces in the same seasons or not at those places at 

 other seasons. 



Mr. Phelps. — For this reason, if we confined our evidence to par- 

 ticular times or particular ships, it would be open to the inference that 

 possibly those ships were to some extent exceptional. Our evidence 

 goes to the entire pelagic sealing — all that takes place at any period 

 when the weather allows, and goes to show that the percentage of female 

 seals principally pregnant, while the herd are on their way to the Island, 

 is the same percentage of nursing females after they get to Behring Sea. 

 The evidence covers the whole business, every month in the year in 

 which it takes place; it covers all vessels engaged iii it, as far as we 

 can reach them, and all i)laces in which seals are taken in the sea in the 

 whole year. 



