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



seal life even to-day — entire ignorance of even tlie length of the life of 

 a seal — entire ignorance, in any accurate way at least, of the length of 

 •reproductive power of the female — ignorance of how long the virile 

 [jower of the male for reproductive puri)oses will continue, yet they 

 have been going on disturbing that balance which nature had fixed 

 between these sexes and defending^ that as the only jjossible way in 

 which the seal race is to be dealt with. 



Now in this connexion I wish to call attention again to those tables 

 very briefly. It is the only reference to diagrams which I shall trouble 

 you to make, but I must ask you to n^fer again to two of the diagrams 

 which are to be found at page 352 of the United States Case, which 

 will be found very useful, and if you will be good enough to favour me 

 by opening, so as to have them for easy reference table A and table 0, 

 those are the tables which relate to males. I may assume that each 

 member of the Tribunal appreciates these diagrams. I do not stop to 

 try to explain them. — I did yesterday try to explain them. This table 

 A is dealing with the normal conditions, apart from killing, of a herd 

 when it has got to a point of what I suppose may be called natural 

 equilibrium — that is to say, has got to the point which, looking to the 

 natural causes and natural enemies to which it is exposed, and the 

 supplies of food, and so on, is the point beyond which it would not 

 reach and to which it would not attain unless it were by the act of 

 man, or otherwise artificially interfered with. That is principle of the 

 diagram. They are in the coloured part and distributed as they would 

 be in such a herd. The green shows the yearlings to the left of the 

 first line. The green, so far as it is to the left of the figure 2, going up 

 the column, shows the two year olds; the pink to the left of the column 

 at the bottom of which is the figure 3, the three-year olds; then the four- 

 year olds, then the five-year olds; and the yellow, from 8 to 19 or 20 

 years of age; and each of those small squares represents 100; and the 

 sum total of the squares so coloured is 40,025 or say 40,000 odd. 



Now you observe there that in the columns from 3 to 7 which repre- 

 sent the class of males which is to supply the future stock of bulls for 

 the purpose of reproduction, there is a very considerable number. 

 What the number is I will tell you, because it has been worked out very 

 carefully. Will you turn to diagram C? You will observe there that 

 the yearling and two-year-old columns, the green on the extreme left, 

 are the same as in diagram A. But in succeeding columns it shows the 

 condition of the same herd or stock of 40,000 under conditions described 

 as "properly regulated killing." And again, you will see the manner 

 in which the entire number is made up and how it is reduced. The 

 numbers are not shown on the face of that diagram, but the means of 

 computing the numbers are shown and it is easy to determine how many 

 seals are included under each class, or colour, of the diagram. Now 

 these figures have been worked out and they are very remarkable. In 

 the normal condition of natural equilibrium and apart from killing, there 

 would be, according to the figures there shown, 3,500 young bulls at any 

 one moment. — It is one of the assumptions in all these diagrams that 

 the seals have obtained their natural maximum number, no increase 

 being possible beyond this, and the same number dying each year that 

 is born in each year. — In the normal condition, therefore, we have 3,500 

 young bulls from 5 to 7 years of age, the breeding bulls in the same 

 normal condition 13,(520. That is the normal condition of things. Now 

 what is the condition of things under the system which is called normal 

 "under properly regulated killing!" Why it is this; 



