ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. 0. M. P. 29 



Instead of there being 3,500 young bulls to supply the place of those 

 that become incapable, there are 500 only and in the place of 13,020 

 breeding- bulls which the normal condition shows, there are 1,080 only. 

 There is a reduction therefore of the stock from which the future bulls 

 will come from 3,500 to 500, and a reduction of the breeding bulls them- 

 selves from 13,020 to 1,080. These are the figures upon the face of the 

 diagrams themselves. Can anybody doubt that that interference with 

 the natnral condition of things, that destruction of the young male 

 stock, that interfering with the proportion of the sexes, must have, as 

 Professor Elliott shows it nnist have had, a most serious and detrimental 

 effect. The consideration of how that is made out by him, would lead 

 me much wider and into more detail than I at all propose myself to go. 

 That my learned friends will deal with. Suffice it to say that, whereas 

 he insists that the proper condition is one in which the bulls, taking 

 their place upon the rookeries and awaiting the arrival of the cows, 

 have to fight for their harems, have to assert their rights by sheer force, 

 and so the principle of natural selection and survival of the fittest is 

 worked out: that in lateryears that state of things has entirely changed 

 and that the harems have grown proportionately to the bulls quite in 

 excess of what they ought to be — passage after passage and page after 

 page of this Report is filled with records to that effect. 



1 have merely to contrast the state of things which he describes as 

 existing in 1874, and which other witnesses describe as well, where the 

 male seals were fighting and one endeavouring to assert its supremacy 

 over the other; and he describes the condition of things as entirely and 

 absolutely changed. This condition of things was one in which tlie bull 

 formed his harem, fought for his wives, and secured as many as he could 

 on the principle of natural selection. What is the condition of things 

 as it is now*? 



I will read one passage, and one passage only because it is so expres- 

 sive, from one of the aftidavits of Mr. iStanley-Brown. It is the affidavit 

 set out in the American Counter Case, at i)age 385. I may observe 

 incidentally that, though Mr.Staidey-Browndoesnot say so, his affidavit 

 clearly shows he was fully aware of the conclusions that Mr. Elliott had 

 arrived at; because you will find that, though he does not put forward 

 his opinions as distinctly traversing the opinion of Mr. Elliott, he does 

 refer to them as statements made which he thinks are not well founded. 

 This is an illustration, the last statement but one on page 385. 



Any statement to the effect that the occasional occurrence of large harems indicates 

 a decrease in the available iiaiiiber of virile males and hence deterioration of the 

 rookeries, should be received with great caution, if not entirely ignored. 



That is a statement which Professor Elliott undoubtedly put forward. 

 This is reversing the order of nature as we generally understand it. 



The bulls play only a secondary part in the formation of harems. It is the cow 

 which takes the initiative. She is in the water beyond the reach or control of the 

 male and can select her own point of landing. Her manner on coming ashore is 

 readily distinguished from that of the young males which continuously play along 

 the sea margin of the breeding grounds. She comes out of the water, carefully noses 

 or smells the rocks here or there like a dog, and then makes her way to the bull of 

 her own selecting. 



^o" 



It seems to be "Leap Year" all the year round on the Seal Islands! 

 And in the order of nature, that law which is so much respected by my 

 learned friends, the advances are supposed generally to come from the 

 males; but here is the ingeiiuousand i)erfectly honest Mr.Stanley-Brown 

 giving as a j)icture that which is the strongest corroboration of the 

 utterly demoralized and unnatural condition to which, under the man- 



