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



Appendix to the British Case; p. 191, 1 do not tliiiik I need tronblethe 



Tribunal to refer to it. He is described as Assistant Collector, Port 



Townsend, Wasliiniiton Territory. 1 am surprised that my 



983 friends should attempt to disclaim him. It is a communication 

 that is published in the records of the oOth Congress miscel- 

 laneous documents no 78 presented by Mr. Dolph on the 15th March 

 1887, and ordered to lay on the table and be i)rinted by the United 

 States; and this shows that he was previously employed to report, 

 because in page 192 he says. 



In 1883 I was instructed by Professor Baird to invostigate the habits of the fur-seals 

 and to make a rei)ort thereon, which report may be found in the Bulletin of the 

 United States Fish Commission, volume III, 1883, page 201. 



So that he had some official i)osition, and why my learned friends 

 should think it right to disclaim him I do not know. 



Now upon this question of property, I need not point out that if there 

 be this intermiugiing, that if there be this interbreeding to however 

 limited a degree, it makes the question of property in the individual 

 seals a hopeless one, because the United States say, " These seals are 

 the result of breeding upon the Pribilof Islands" ; equally Kussia might 

 say, "They are the result of breeding upon the Commander Islands"; 

 and when you get to a community and commingling and confusion of 

 the two herds, and an intermingling or interbreeding of these two herds 

 or families, whatever they are called, — to say there can be flxed, in i)oint 

 of law, a jjroperty in any one of that mixed and confused family is a 

 proposition that is quite untenable. 



Now, still in that same connection, a very curious fact comes out in 

 the evidence of the British Commissioners, and I speak subject to con- 

 tradiction and correction if I am wrong. I do not think it is in any way 

 met or contradicted by the United States Commissioners. It is this — 

 that the skins of the seals that come to land become almost immediately, 

 or soon after they come to the land, in the condition known as " stagey" ; 

 that is to say, a condition in which their pelage is not in the best condi- 

 tion for the purpose of commerce, but that among the seals tlTat are 

 killed at sea by the pelagic scalers the number of stagey skins is exceed- 

 ingly limited. This fact would seem to suggest that a change takes 

 place periodically, probably annually, in the skins of each of these ani- 

 mals; yet when they remain almost continually in the water the change 

 is more gradual and scarcely noticeable, whereas when they come to 

 land and remain on the land, and are exi)Osed to the effect of the atmos- 

 phere and sun for a considerable time, the stagey condition becomes 

 more marked. 



I will not stop to read them, but I would respectfully ask the Tribunal 

 to note that in paragraphs 134, 281, 031 and 632 of the British Commis- 

 sioners' Eeport the facts that I have adverted to are mentioned; and 

 in Mr. Macoun's Eeport, to be found in the first volume of the British 

 Counter Case, Appendix, at pages 145 and 139, the same result seems 

 to have been noticed by him. 



Now one other point. I have stated that as regards certain of the 



seals they do not return to the islands at all, until they come there for 



certain definite j)urposes in connection with the perpetuation of 



984 their species: in other words, that there is no need for the young 

 male seals to come there till they are a certain age ; that some do 



come but a great many do not; that in the case of the female seal there 

 is no need for her to come there until she comes under the influence of 

 the sexual instinct. Now I want to show that that is a fact. 



