ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 199 



or the best dog-, or tlie best boar, or the best ram, and for two or three 

 or four years, and sometimes for more under certain circumstances, they 

 exercise their functions; but you have here no means at all of selecting 

 the best bulls — not the slightest. The only method of s(^lection knowu 

 is that they light for the possession of the females. Under the circum- 

 stances what is called natural selection goes on. Now I might expand 

 this subject, without wasting time, to considerable length, but I will, 

 at any rate, be moderate in that regard, and will only state that which 

 I know will commend itself to the Tribunal. The extract to which I 

 will call attention is Darwin's "Origin of Species", at page 69, from the 

 6th edition i)ublished in 1886, and, in order that my learned friinds 

 may not be misled, 1 will tell them at once it is not in our Appendix. 

 It is under the head of "Sexual Selection": 



luasnmcli as peculiarities often appear under domestication in one sex and become 

 hereditarily attached to that sex. so no doubt it will be under Nature. Thus it is ren- 

 dered possible tor the two sexes to be modilied through natural selection in relation 

 to dift'ercnt habits of life as is souietimes the case, or for oue sex to be modihed in 

 relation to the other sex, as commonly occurs. This leads me to say a few words on 

 what I have called "Sexual Selection". This form of selection depends not on a 

 struggle for existence in relation to other organic beings, or to external conditions, 

 but on a struggle between the individuals of oue sex, generally the males for the 

 possession of the other sex. The result is not death. 



I pause to note, in that very interesting passage, — a very graphic 

 passage from the aftidavit of Mr. Stanley Brown where he has told you 

 for the tirst time with his one year's experience that the males in au 

 ordinary herd have nothing to do with the selection of females, but 

 that it is the female who selects her male, — showing, with great defer- 

 ence to Mr. Stanley Brown, how little he really studied the matter, — it 

 is absolutely unique as far as seal-life is concerned and certainly with 

 regard to other animals. 



The result is not death to the unsuccessful competitor, but few or no offspring. 

 Sexual selection is, therefore, less rigorous than natural selection. Generally the 

 most vigourous males, those which are best iitted for their places in Nature, will leave 

 most jirogeny; but, in many cases, victory deix^uds not so much on general vigor as 

 on having special weapons conlined to the male sex. A hornless stag or a spurlcss 

 cock would have a poor chance of leaving numerous offspring. Sexual selection l)y 

 always allowing the victor to breed might surely give indomitable courage length 

 to the spur and strength to the wing to strike in a spurred leg in nearly the same 

 manner as does the brutal cock tighter by the careful selection of his best cocks. 

 How low in the scale of nature the law of battle descends, I know not. Male alli- 

 gators have been described as fighting, bellowing and whirling round like Indians 

 in a Wardance for the jiossession of the females; male salmon have been observed 

 lighting all day long; male stag-beetles sometimes bear wounds from the huge man- 

 dibles of other males; the male.s of certain hijmenopterous insects have been fre- 

 quently seen by that inimitable observer, Mons. Fabre, figlitiug for a particular 

 female who sits by, an ap^iarently unconcerned beholder of the struggle, and then 

 retires with the conqueror. The war is perhaps severest between the males of polyg- 

 amous animals, and these seem oftenest provided with special wea])ons. The males 

 of carnivorous animals are already well armed, though to them and to others si'.ecial 

 means of defence may be given through means of sexual selection; as the mane to 

 the lion, and the hooked jaw to the male salmon; for the shield may be as important 

 for victory as the sw ord or spear. 



When 1 show you, as I shall upon the .evidence in this case, that 

 practically the evidence of the Treasury Agents, the evidence of the 

 people who had no motive whatever except to tell the truth, is that by 

 the years 1889 and 1890 lighting for the females had disappeared u[)on 

 these Kookeries, it will be some sup]>ort of the view that 1 am i)resent- 

 ing that there is strong leason to believe that the potent cause which 

 the United States Commissioners themselves recognized as being one 

 of the causes that might lead to the diminution in seal life was playing 

 its part in depopulating the Eookeries to which these seals resorted. 



