162 



utilized for public and coimncrcial purpose:^, and to that end regula- 

 tions were established restricting the number to be taken annually 

 for such purposes. That system has been perpetuated and improved 

 by the United States, with the result that the return of these seals 

 to the Pribilof Islands, from year to year, in the same months, and 

 their remaining upon the islands &r stated periods, and so that a 

 due j)roportion of males may be taken without at all disturbing the 

 herd in its entirety, is absolutely assured, provided only the extermi- 

 nation of the race by pelagic sealing is prevented. 



But this is not all. We have seen that by an act of Congress, passed 

 soon after the United States acquired Pribilof Islands, the islands of St. 

 Paul and St. George were set apart as the land home of these animals. 

 A place was thus provided for them where they could abide while 

 breeding, and rearing their young, and while their coats of fur were 

 undergoing a change. Only a limited number of persons are allowed 

 to go to or remain on the islands. Regulations have been estab- 

 lished i)reventiug the herd from being unduly disturbed while 

 there. Enormous expense has been incurred in providing vessels to 

 guard the breeding grounds against marauding parties engaged in seal 

 hunting; and the Government of the United States protects the race 

 against indiscriminate slaughter while on land. The precautions thus 

 taken for the preservation of the herd may sometimes have been evaded, 

 but it is not to be doubted that if raiders were permitted, without restric- 

 tion, to capture and kill these seals while on the islands, the race would 

 be speedily exterminated as other animals of like kind have been 

 destroyed in the waters of the Southern Ocean. Further, the United 

 States, recognizing the value of this race of animals to itself and to com- 

 merce, forbears to impair the stock throngh indiscriminate killing, and 

 not only forbids, under severe penalties, the killing of female seals, but 

 limits the taking on the islands eacli year to such a proportion of 

 males as can safely be taken, for commercial purposes, without 

 destroying the race. 



If these animals, from their nature and habits, needed an actual 

 shelter over their heads while at the breeding grounds, and such a 

 shelter was, in fact, provided for them by the United States, could 

 human ingenuity distinguish the case, in principle, from that of other 

 valuable animals fcrw naturw, in which, by the law everywhere, prop- 

 erty may be acquired by the care and industry of man? Instead of 

 such shelter for their x^'otcctiou during storm and rain the United 



