ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 43 



wliicli should be, as far as was necessary, applicable both to the 

 Ishmds and the sea. 



Now their report begins substantially at page 6 where they deal with 

 the general conditions of seal life and on page 7 under the head b. killing 

 on the breeding Islands; they deal with the state of things which they 

 have found and they euter into a historical review, at the bottom of 

 page 7 and on page 8, as to the measure of slaughter during the Rus- 

 sian, and during the period of the United States, control. I have 

 already given the figures and I do not stop to refer to them, but I 

 may observe in passing as regards killing upon the Islands which is 

 claimed as being discriminating, there is this to be said about it, it can- 

 not escape from this charge — I am not now going back upon the consid- 

 eration of whether it can be truly called discriminating — that I have 

 already dealt with as far as I propose to deal with it — but there is this 

 charge to be made against it and from which it cannot escape, namely, 

 that it is a killing carried on at the time at which in the case of rules 

 for the preservation of other wild animals those rules exempt those 

 wild animals from all interference, namely, during the breeding season. 



That is the peculiarity of this beautiful system pursued upon the 

 Islands, namely, that at the very period when the race is engaged in 

 the work of reproduction, that is the very time at which the scientific 

 killing, which is open to no objection whatever, takes place upon the 

 islands, a system which in those conditions the British Commissioners, 

 I suppose in order to show how jjartizan and unfair they were, describe 

 as a system " transcendentally perfect", whatever that means. But 

 there it is. The killing is carried on at the very x)eriod when the system 

 of law in all countries in the world, — municipal law I am talking ot^ — 

 leaves the principal race or races of wild animals or birds wholly unmo- 

 lested, namely the breeding season. That entails the consequences to 

 which Professor Elliott in part refers to, of which we have abundant 

 evidence scattered throughout the whole of the case, of the disturbance 

 of the harems, of the mixing up of the young and the old, the stampedes 

 of the old involving the death of the young, the driving and redriving 

 from their getting mixed up in the way described. But so it is. 



The President. — Is it shown that the fur is of lesser quality during 

 the breeding period — that the hair falls ott', for instance? 



Sir Charles Russell. — That is the '' stagey" time, undoubtedly. 

 What I call the breeding time is later. The evidence appears to stand 

 in this way. The females have practically all arrived by about the 

 middle of June, — between the middle and the end of June; the great 

 bulk of them, I think it may be said, by the middle of June. 



They very early after their arrival produce their young. I think the 

 evidence points to the conclusion, in point of fact, they do not seek 

 voluntarily the land until the suggestion of nature comes to them; and 

 they are, very speedily after their arrival, delivered of their young 

 and then, after a comparatively short time, impregnation is supposed 

 to follow — within a very short time after the delivery of the young. 

 The stagey condition is at a later period, July and August, but what I 

 called the breeding-time, and it was in that sense I was using it, was 

 this — I was referring to the whole period from the time of the pup 

 being born, till the time when the pup may be said, in some sense, at 

 least, to be self-sustaining — that is to say, taking to the water on its 

 own account, which generally happens within six weeks to two mouths 

 after its birth. 



The President — In fact, the killing goes on during the stagey time. 



Sir Charles Russell — Yes to a slight amount. 



