OKAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 129 



And if you will kindly turn and look at that photograph and see the 

 character of the rocks, part of the reef rookery, on iSt. Paul's Islands 

 and remember the seals remain on those rookeries for weeks after going 

 into the water, both male and female, I do not tliink it is saying too 

 much when I suggest to you that tlie idea that tlie solid and hard dejecta 

 and excreta of these animals can be soaked up so as to disappear will 

 not commend itself to the mind of tlie Tribunal so far as it is necessary 

 to decide this point; and yet it is the fact that this absence of excre- 

 ment and excreta was common ground with everybody till the United 

 States Counter Case, and then they do not go to the people who have 

 known these rookeries for years, they do not go to the persons who 

 would have been able to say from the knowledge of 20 years, but they 

 go to Mr. Stanley Brown who, in his later affidavit, says that this 

 absence of it is to be accounted for by it having- soaked in to the ground 

 to a certain extent. I think I am not doing an injustice to him when I 

 say that that is scarcely to be credited as an opinion in the face of the 

 evidence to which I have already called attention. In the same Vol- 

 ume will be found Mr. Morton's account of the rookeries at page 66. 



Senator Morgan. — When you say that the seals old and young 

 remain without food on the Islands there for 5 or 6 weeks, do you mean 

 also to say. Sir Richard, the males and females, — do you mean the old 

 and the young females? 



Sir Richard Websier. — No; I did not mean old and young, if you 

 include pups in old and young. I Avas speaking of the females and par- 

 ticularly I had in my mind the females whom it is suggested go out to 

 sea for food and come back again during the period of nursing. My 

 contention is this, and it is one ujion which I ask the jndgment of the 

 Tribunal, that t]ie females do not leave for food substantially, (I do not 

 say that they do not ever go) till the independence of the pup with 

 regard to the mother is practically complete; at that time, they leave 

 to go to sea for food, the necessity of their being there having, jiracti- 

 cally speaking, disappeared. That is shown by two facts; that very 

 shortly afterwards, that is to say within a few weeks, the pups are to 

 be found at a considerable distance along the shore spread all along, 

 and that at no time during the continued sojourn of the female upon 

 the Island is any excreta to be f lund at any place where she has been. 

 That is my contention, on which I ask your judgment when you come 

 to the evidence. 



jS^ow, I was calling your attention to the character of the rookery 

 ground; and in Mr. Morton's affidavit, at page 66, you will see this: 



During the seasons of 1877 and 1878, while serving iu the caparity of special 

 Treasury Agent, I devoted my best attention and study to this subject. It may be 

 said in the start that the grounds held by the fur-seals are known at the islands as 

 "rookeries" and hauling "'gr')unds." On the former are found the breeding seals, 

 namely, the full-grown males not less than six years of age, and females of three 

 years old and upwards. The grounds comprising the rookeries slope upward from 

 the sea in a gradual and e;isy manner, and are characterized by hard dry surfaces of 

 volcanic cement or basaltic rock. They are readily accessible from the water and 

 possess other favorable conditions for occupancy by the seal life. 



Now that is the condition of the rookery gronnd spoken to by 

 Captain Bryant; that is the condition of the ground spoken to by 

 Mr. Stanley Brown ; that is the condition of the ground spoken to by Mr. 

 Morton before any question had been raised suggesting that the dejecta 

 from these animals might disappear into the soil absolutely impossible — 

 inconsistent with all the known facts. Upon that 1 ask attention again 

 to the British Commissioners' Report because they examined this mat- 

 ter, because there is no one that would suggest with reference to this 

 B S, PT XIV 9 



