160 ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 



at tliis time either on the North-East or Reef rookeries, but in mimlier in no respect 

 comparable to that previously noted at Tolstoi, or even to that on the south part of 

 Polavina. 



Then the Keport refers to the examination of the bodies which was 

 done under the knowledge of Mr. Stanley Brown, but from the point of 

 view of number it is not material. 



Now Mr. Stanley Brown refers to this same occurrence in the year 

 1891. 1 am dealing, entirely, Mr. President, with dead pups upon the 

 rookeries. At the bottom of page 18 of the Second volume of the Appen- 

 dix to the United State case, Mr. Stanley Brown makes a statement, 

 and I ask whether it is i)ossible if it were true that what was discovered 

 in 1891 was only the development of what had been going on in 1887, 

 1888, 1889 and 1890, it would be possible that Mr. Stanley Brown's Atiida- 

 vit could have been what it is? 



Now this is what he says : 



In the latter part of July, 1891, my attention was called to a source of waste, the 

 efficiency of which was most startlingly illustrated. In my conversations with the 

 natives I had learned that dead pups had been seen upon the rookeries in the past few 

 years in such numbers as to cause much concern. By the middle of July they pointed 

 out to men hero aud there dead pups and others so weak and emaciated that their 

 death was but a matter of a few days. 



By the time the British Commissioners arrived the dead pups were in sufficient 

 abundance to attract their attention, and they are, I believe, under the impression 

 that they first discovered them. I procured a number of these puiis, aud U' Akerly 

 at my request, made autopsies, not only at the village, but later on uj)Ou the ruokcriea 

 themselves. The lungs of these dead pups lloated in water. There was no orgauic 

 disease of heart, liver, lungs, stomach, or alimentary canal. In the latter there was 

 but little aud often no fecal matter and the stomach was entirely em])ty. Pups in 

 the last stage of emaciation were seen by me upon the rookeries, and tlieir condition 

 as well as that of the dead ones left no room to doubt that their <leath was caused by 

 starvation. By the latter part of August deaths were rare, the mortality having prac- 

 tically ceased. An examination of the warning lists of the combined tleets of British 

 and American cruisers will show that before the middle of Auiiust the last sealing 

 schooner was sent out of Behring Sea. These vessels had entered the sea about .July 

 first, and had done much eftective work by July 15th. The nxntality among the 

 pups and its cessation is synchronous with the sealing fleets arrival aud departure 

 from Behring Sea. 



If I had to criticise that, Mr. President, from the actual dates, it would 

 not be found to be strictly accurate, but I do not want to i)ause to discuss 

 a i^oint which is not of such great importance; because what I am going 

 to call attention to later on, makes all criticism attempted to be founded 

 on the dates of vessels in Behring Sea become of no importance at all. 



Now at page 101 of the same book — the second volume of the Appen- 

 dix to the United States Case — will be found the evidence of Mr. Barnes, 

 Avho says this : 



One day, during the latter part of August or fore part of September last (exact 

 date forgotten), Col. Joseph Murray, one of the Treasury Agents, and myself, in 

 company with the British Commissioners, Sir George Baden-Powell and D'' Dawson, 

 by boat visited one of the seal rookeries of that Island, known as Tolstoi or English 

 Bay. On arriving there our attention was at once attracted by the excessive uumbcr 

 of dead seal pups whose carcasses lay scattered profusely over the breeding ground 

 or sand beach bordering the rookerj"^ proper, and extending into the border of the 

 rookery itself. The strange sight occasioned much surmise at the time as to the 

 jjrobable cause of it. Some of the carcasses were in an advanced stage of decay, 

 while others were of recent death, and tlieir general appearance was that of having 

 died from starvation. 



There were a few that still showed signs of life, bleating weakly and piteonsly, aud 

 gave every evidence of being in a starved condition, with no mother seals near to or 

 showing them any attention. 



D' Dawson, while on the gound, took some views of the rookery with his Kodak; 

 but whether the views he took included the dead pups I could not say. 



