ORAL ARGUMENT OP HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 251 



decrease from natural causes was too large; but my opinion on tliat 

 question is worthless; and there is no evidence by whicli it can be 

 ascertained. They evidently undertook to make a very liberal allow- 

 ance for the death of the young by natural causes; and they work 

 out, I believe, that half of all that are born perish the lirst year; and 

 then in a proportionate ratio they continue to perish from merely 

 natural causes, even if they were left alone. Then we assume that 

 each breeding female has a breeding life of 18 years. That is the 

 result of the best evidence there is in this case: that each breeding 

 female gives birth annually, from and including her third year, to one 

 pup, and that half of these pups are females. That, I believe, is 

 conceded. Of course, these are assura])tions, but they are the best 

 assumi)tions that the evideiu-e warrants as to the breeding age of the 

 seals, the number of pups that they produce. Then a calculation is 

 made in this way; and we will take Table A.. We take 1,000 females. 

 By way of hypothesis we divide them into 4 classes: 3 years old, 4 

 years old, 5 years old, G years old, which are all breeding ages. Then 

 if you refer to the first column of Table A, the left-hand column, the 

 figures at the top give the numbers of the years from one to 18. In 

 column one, the 4 lower figures of 250 each represent these 1,000 fur- 

 seals of 3, 4, 5 and 6 years of age. Now those seals will produce that 

 year 500 female pups, upon the assumption that, if they produce 1,000 

 young, 500 will be ienuiles. You add, therefore, to that 1,000, the first 

 year, 500; and j^ou have now 1,500 females of whom the 500 are just 

 born. 



Now go to the second year, and the 500 females, that were born the 

 year before, shriidv, by natural causes, to 250 who attained their second 

 year, and that 250 is the second figure in the column. Then the 1,000 

 breeding seals, with which you begin, shrink, the one class to 208, the 

 next to 225, the next to 23G, and the last to 220. Those are the figures 

 resulting from the ratio of decrease given by the Commissioners. That 

 number of seals, thus shrunk from the former year, produces that year 

 444 females, which you will find is the figure at the head of the column, 

 and the number of female seals has increased that year, the net 

 increase, to 1,583. Now if you follow that table down, noticing that 

 the corresponding figure in each column is one step lower down, you 

 find what becomes of that original 1,000 that you started with. In the 

 sixteenth year they are all gone; tliat is to say, if not dead they are 

 past the breeding time, and that 1,000 with which you started has 

 gradually disappeared from the herd, and is gone. 



You will see what the successive birth in each successive year is 

 after they get to be old enough for the seals that are born in each suc- 

 cessive year to breed, and you will see at the head of the column under 

 each successive year the females that will be born during that year. 

 They are carried forward with their increase after they get to be three 

 years old, and I think with this explanation I can add nothing that 

 renders the tables any clearer. They are quite clear as they staiul 

 and you see the result in the 18 years; at the end of that time 1,000 

 females have become 2,117, as a net result after deducting all that 

 have died from natural causes either by being killed in earlier years or 

 from outliving their usefulness and so disapi^earing. 



Unless some question should be suggested about these tables I will 

 turn to Table B though I should be happy to try to answer any ques- 

 tion that may be put. 



Table B shows the number of females that would have been alive in 

 1882 except for ])e]agic sealing and which would have appeared on the 

 breeding grounds in 1884, calculating from Table B. 



