114 ARGUMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



some proprietan'riA'bt in tlie seals tbeinselves,it is a wholly 

 misleading one. " What ''habitation," as distinguished from 

 '■'■ home," may imply is not explained. 

 Page 111. The reference next made on this page of the United 



te?^caifApi"n- States Counter-Case to Kobben Island audits rookeries, 

 rtix,voi.'ii,i'i>-^9, i-eiiders it appropriate to point out that in the very years 

 ^^^' in which this i.sland was being continnously harassed by 



raids, the seals began to form new rookeries in other suit- 

 able places. It is of course impossible to state that they 

 were actually the same far seals which had formerly resorted 

 to Kobben Island, but the presumption is in favour of that 

 belief. 

 Ibid., pp. 34. 35. In 1892, evidence of the most conclusive kind possible has 

 been obtained on this ]iarticular subject, relating to the 

 formation or attempted formation of new rookeries on Moo- 

 shir Eocks, Eaikoke Island, and Shed-noi Island of the 

 Kurile group. Bittern Hocks oif the north-west coast of 

 Nipon Island, and on the Island of St. Zona in Okhotsk Sea. 

 It is thus no longer necessary to deal with the discussion 

 of abstract propositions on this subject of the change of 

 breeding-places, to which we are invited in the Counter- 

 Case of tlie United States. 

 141 Occasion is next taken on this page of the United 



States Counter-Case, to contradict or modify the 

 evidence of one witness out of three quoted in para. 422 

 of the British Commissioners' Report, in which it is stated 

 that, concurrently with the beginning of the United States 

 control of the Pribyloft' Islands (and presumably because 

 of the excessive slaughter occurring at that time), fur- 

 seals were found in more than usual abundance on the 

 coast of British Columbia; the evidence adduced being 

 such as to show the injurious effect of disturbance on the 

 breeding-islands. 

 United stales The matter has been considered to be of so great impor- 

 App^endixpp'lliV.tauce by the United States, that Professor J. A. Allen has 

 written a special letter to the United States Secretary of 

 State, to say that the year should have been 1870, and not 

 1869 (as stated in his Monograph), in which seals were spe- 

 cially abundant on this coast. Instead of weakening the 

 force of the Commissioners' statement on this point, the 

 correction given strengthens it, and fully accords with the 

 evidence obtained by the Commissioners from other sources. 

 There is no reason to suppose that the excessive disturb- 

 ance on the breeding islands, which reached its maximum 

 British Com- in 1808, was couliued in its effect to the next year. The 



missioners' Re-,. ' . , ,, ^ .. -^^.i j.ij. 



port, Diagram diagram givcii by the Commissioners, m lact shows that 

 parai^44 809.'^^'^"^^'^ greatly increased Indian catches along the British 

 Columbian coast actually occurred in 1870 and 1871. 



