ARGUMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN. 29 



some colour to the United States contention of right of 

 property and protection. 



The term "herd" is appHcable to seals (if at all) only ibi*d.,p.ii8. 

 when ou the islands, and then only to each rookery sepa- 

 rately, or to bodies of seals driven together. 



No distinction, as between the fur-seals resorting to the 

 two sides of the ISTorth Pacific, has heretofore been known 

 to naturalists. 



30 The alleged distinction recently advanced ou the 

 part of the United States is based on the classing 



of skins by fur-dealers, but such classing, and the differ- 

 ences of price resulting, are no evidence of difference of 

 kind in the fur-seal or in other animals. 



The criteria employed by fnr-dealers in classing the 

 skins, though important in the trade, are in themselves 

 slight and difiicult of definition. In the particular case 

 of fur-seal skins from the Pribyloff and Commander Islands, 

 experienced dealers actually observe a laige percentage 

 of skins from each source which would be classed, accord- 

 ing to the criteria they employ, as coming from the other. 



Though fur-seals are to a certain degree controllable British coim- 

 when on land, this resnlts from their helplessness ^jjiieiei-tJi'se.p.in. 

 there, and such control has nothing to do with domestica- 

 tion. 



It is im])racticable so to control the seals as to j)revent 

 them from going to the sea whenever they desire to do so, 

 and, were it i)ossible so to do, the seals would perish. 



While the seals are on the Pribyloff" Islands, they are 

 left entirely to their natural inclinations both as to leaving 

 and returning to the islands. 



They retain there all their characteristics of animals 

 ferm 7iaturc€. 



They are unused to, and incapable of, any but slow and 

 laboured movement on land, and are therefore easily sur- 

 rounded and driven to the killing-grounds for slaughter. 



Such control as is exercised in driving and killing, ibid., p. 112. 

 amounts to no more than preventing those which are 

 selected for killing from escaping. 



The seals dread the approach of man, and endeavour to 

 flee from him, even when collected in great numbers ashore; 

 though it is probable that, when their breeding-places were 

 first visited, ignorance caused them to be fearless. The 

 result of this contact with man has therefore been the 

 oj)posite of that implied by domestication. 



During the greater part of the year, the seals are wholly 

 removed from the cognizance of persons on the Pribyloif 

 Islands; and till very lately their winter haunts were not 

 even known. 



All ideas attached to the word "domestic" are 



31 therefore wanting in the case of fur-seals. Man does 

 not provide their food or in any way assist them to 



obtain it; his care is at most of a negative kind, and con- 

 sists in the avoidance of acts which would tend to drive 

 them wholly away from the breeding-islands. They would 

 not suffer, but, on the contrary, would profit, by his depart 

 ture from these islands. 



