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by care and industry a place is provided for them, wli ere tliey can abide 

 iu safety for the purposes of breeding, to whicli they habitually coine, 

 and where they are protected from disturbance, so that their ijierease 

 may be regularly taken for man's use, all is done tlrat is required to give 

 property in them. While these conditions exist, the right of property 

 remains. 



The instinct of a wild animal to resort, for the first time, to a par- 

 ticular place is not, in the case of bees, pigeons, deer, wild geese, or 

 swans, the creation of man. But, in a substantial sense, their subse- 

 quent return to and remaining at that place from time to time, so 

 that a Iiusbandry can be established with res}>ect to tliem,isdue to the 

 self denial, care aud industry of the person who j)rovides for them a 

 place which he maintains and protects for their use. They do not, 

 under the circumstances stated, become tame, within the literal mean- 

 ing of that word, and so as to lose all their original wildness of naturej 

 but, in the eye of the law, they are so far reclaimed from their natural 

 condition of wildness that they do not always flj" from the presence of man, 

 or escape from his dominion and control, but, as the result of his art and 

 industry, remain so far in his pawer, that their product can be utilized 

 with the sauie regularity, and almost as readily, as the product of 

 domestic animals may be utilized. 



It has been said that the coming of these fur seals to the Pribilof 

 Islands, from year to year, for the purposes already indii^ated, is not 

 to be attributed to anything that the United States, as the owner of 

 the islands, has done, or has refrained from doing. Is this true? Pre- 

 mising that it is not the number of things done, which determines 

 the value of what is done, let me ask, whether the United States 

 has done all that is necessary in order to utilize this race, with- 

 out destroying it, or imperiling its existence. Would the seals 

 continue to come to Pribilof Islands, from year to year, if, by 

 the direction or with the assent of the United States, they were 

 met, as they might be, at the shore of the islands, and driven back into 

 the water! Would tliey remain on the islands during the breeding 

 season except for the care taken, under regulations prescribed by the 

 United States, to induce them to do so, and except for the protection 

 afforded them, while on the islands, against the pursuit of seal hunters 

 having in view immediate profit for themselves rather than the 

 l)reservation of these animals for the benefit of mankind? These 

 questions must receive an answer in the negative. In view of the 



