ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P 15 



Sir Charles Eussell. — "Well, Sir, I beg most distinctly, but respect 

 fully to say there is no evidence which warrants any such conclusion; 

 and I submit on the contrary so far from there beinj; any evidence to 

 warrant that conclusion that the evidence is the other way; because 

 the evidence is that seals that do go to land become and are found stagey 

 at a certain jiortion of tlieir pelage in a certain period of the year, but 

 at the very same period of the year seals are being taken by pelagic 

 sealers, and on being taken pelagically are found not to be in that stagey 

 condition at all. But further, as that has been mentioned, may I ask 

 you, sir, to note — 1 did not intend even to give the reference — the evi- 

 dence as to the scattering of large numbers of seals during the breed- 

 ing season when, according to the contention of my friends, the whole 

 family are in and about the islands, as set out in the second volume of 

 the A])])endix to the British Counter Case, page 27. There is set out 

 there in summary a body of evidence of a great number of persons, 

 speaking to different times and to different parts of that whole vast 

 extent of ocean, showing that it is impossible to arrive at the conclusion 

 which you have been good enough to suggest as one to be discussed, 

 that the seals do go each year necessarily to land. Indeed, we have 

 the admissions in the evidence of Mr. Bryant, who was 1 think a Treas- 

 ury Agent on the Pribilof Islands, to the effect that when the female 

 pup leaves the island it does not return to the island in its first year; 

 that it comes to the island in the third year to deliver its first pup. As 

 the question has been challenged I should just like to refer you to the 

 passage where that appears. 



In his Monograph of North American Pinnipeds, pages 401, 402, 

 after speaking of the pups Mr. Bryant says: 



"At this stage the female pups leave the island for the winter, and very few 

 appear to return to the islauda until they are three years old." 



There is other authority to the same effect; but I cite that as being 

 a witness called on the part of the United States. 



But we have means of getting much closer to this matter and of deter- 

 mining what is the true measure of responsibility to be cast upon the 

 pelagic sealers what is the correct measure or the approximately correct 

 measure at least, of- the effect of pelagic sealers, u^jon the race of 

 fur-seals in these parts. 



Now, Mr. President, there are three distinct dates given in various 

 places by witnesses called on the part of the United States as the date 

 at which decrease was first noticed on the Pribilof Islands. Those 

 three dates are 1887 — some of them giv^e — 1879 — but the United States 

 argument fixes 1884 as the first date when any significant decrease was 

 noticed ; and that is what is now suggested as the date upon which 

 they fix. 



My learned friend, Mr. Coudert, on page 655 of the print of his oral 

 argument, takes the latter date and gives the go by to the statement 

 of some of the witnesses, to which I shall incidentally hereafter refer, 

 fixing the noticeable decrease as early as 1877 and 1879. On page 655 

 Mr. Coudert says this: 



From 1870 to 1880 it was one of increase. Of course it is not ahsolntely and 

 mathciiiatically possible to establish when increase ceased and stagnation com- 

 menced and decrease took its place; bnt speaking of the question, with such infor- 

 mation as we can get from persons who are able to express an opinion, that is the 

 estiiiuite that we submit to tlie court increase to 1880; stagnation from IJSSO to about 

 lsi^'4 ; and subseiiueutly to that the decrease which it is conceded on all sides exists 

 and now threatens extermination. 



I do not know that that last statement is to be taken as an admis- 

 sion ; b.ut so rey learned friend puts it. 



