ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 345 



G. The rather fanciful sug^srestion has been made that drafts upon 

 male life, caused by these internecine conflicts, involve tlie survival ot 

 the ''fittest", and that by making large drafts from the males these 

 conflicts are prevented. We have better means of knowing vrhether 

 the contests are still carried on among the males than a priori reason- 

 ing aftbrds. The fact is open to observation. It is overwhelmingly 

 proved, and without any dissent, except that of Elliott, that such con- 

 tests are still earnestly waged. But aside from this, is it reasonable to 

 suppose that males engaged in frequent contests, lasting for hours and 

 sometimes all day, and frequently resulting in death, are better fitted 

 for the office of reproduction than other males in a herd in which their 

 pro])ortion to that of females, and consequently the occasion for such 

 contests, was much less? 



7. Finally, the question whether the annual draft of 100,000 which 

 has been j)racticed upon the island is excessive or not, is also suscepti- 

 ble of a conclusive answer, notafl'ected by the incertainties of a priori 

 reasoning. The experience of this herd for half a century leaves no 

 room for doubt upon this point. We know that the Eussians, whose 

 drafts were governed, not by the capacities of the herd, but by the 

 demand in the market, took during the later i)eriod of their occupation 

 from fifty to seventy thousand young males annually, and that, under 

 this draft, the herd not only maintained its numbers, but very largely 

 increased, and was, at the time of the transfer to tlie United States, in 

 a condition of abounding prosperity. We know that the United States, 

 thereafter, in the face of an excessive and somewhat indiscriminate 

 slaughter of 240,000 in the year 1868 regularly made the draft of 100,000 

 up to the year 1884, without effecting any diminution in the normal num- 

 bers of the herd. It is indeed probable that the effects of pelagic sealiiig 

 had then begun to make themselves manifest in a slight degree, and it 

 is certain that from that time they began to have a decisive influence. 

 The United States has never pretended that it could safely continue 

 to make the draft of 100,000 after the birth-rate became diminished by 

 the effects of pelagic sealing. Had the Government known, prior to 

 1800, the extent of the diminution thus effected, it would undoubtedly 

 have diminislied its drafts and pressed more earnestly for the suppres- 

 sion of this destructive pursuit. 



But what is to be said of the consistency of those who, in the case 

 of a polygamous animal like the seal, insist that the annual taking of 

 100,000 young males is too large, and tends to a diminution of the herd, 

 and yet insist upon the continuance of a practice which, even when 

 restricted and regulated as proposed by them, would necessarily involve 

 the annual slaughter of 40,000 females, and i)robably many more? 



