ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 235 



or "none." So that irrespective of the American evidence, the great 

 weight of the British testimony went to establisli the fact claimed by 

 the United States to be true and stated by the American Commis- 

 sioners. 



He further remarked that from the nature of the case, upon the undis- 

 puted account of the habits of the seals, it could not be otherwise than 

 that the greater part of the seals taken in the Behring Sea must be 

 nvTrsing mothers, since, at the time when the catch iu that sea was in 

 progress, very few other seals left the islands, and the mothers of the 

 pups just born were compelled to go out and did go out, sometimes to 

 long distances, for sustenance.) 



Mr. Phelps proceeded: 1 pass on to another subject, the effect on 

 the young on the Islands of the death of these nursing mothers. We 

 have had the extraordinary suggestion made that the young may be 

 left without nourishment, and are going to live somehow or other, and 

 that the destruction of the mothers does not make any difference. — Per- 

 haps some other mother will nurse them — that is one theory. Another 

 is, that they do not need any nursing — that they come down to the 

 shore and forage on the sea-wrack, and so forth. But what is the evi- 

 dence'? In the first place, the evidence on that subject of the great 

 number of dead pups that are found on the rookeries is not denied and 

 cannot be denied. I need not refer you again to it, because that is not 

 in dispute; but other reasons are given or attempted to be given for 

 the mortality. 



It is said by my learned friends that there were no dead pups seen 

 on the rookery in any great numbers up to 1891, and they say if pelagic 

 sealing was destroying the nursing females in the previous years, how 

 comes it to pass that young were not found dead on the rookery till 

 1891? Then they say the mortality in 1891 was confined to St. Paul's 

 Island, one of the Pribiloffs, and did not extend to the other; and to two 

 rookeries on that Island. Then they say that the mortality appeared 

 again in 1892 upon the same rookeries, although, under the modus 

 Vivendi, there was no sealing in Behring Sea to destroy the nursing- 

 mothers; and they say that no unusual number of dead pups was seen 

 on the Commander Islands in 1892, notwithstanding that pelagic seal- 

 ing had begun there. 



Now, all these propositions, if true, would constitute a complete and 

 conclusive answer to the charge that the pups starved to death by the 

 destruction of their mothers during the suckling period. In wliat 

 extraordinary manner Providence provided for their surviving would 

 still be left a matter of astonishment; but it would dispose of the fact 

 that death was owing to the destruction of mothers. 



The difficulty with those propositions is that there is not one of them 

 that is true. They are assumptions not supported by evidence, and are 

 utterly disproved. 



In the first place, as to the proposition that there were no dead pups 

 prior to 1891 seen on the rookery in any great numbers. That is their 

 proposition — there is no evidence to show it. 



I will call attention to the testimony on this subject as rapidly as I 

 can; not all of it — there is a great deal more. It will be found between 

 pages 4()(> and 481 of the A])pendix to the American Argument — the 

 Collated Testimony. The full depositions are in all cases referred to in 

 the margin, so that by turning to the 2nd United States Appendix — 

 another book — you see the whole of the statements. Tliere is a great 

 deal more testimony as I say between the pages I have mentioned. 



