110 



coast of North America, and are iu easy reach of the "industry" o/ 

 pelagic sealers. 



They must travel a great deal in the night time. In tliis they are 

 guided and protected by their sense of hearing and smell, and, like 

 the cat, they are provided with several rows of whiskers that are very 

 sensitive and that admonish them of danger in places where they can 

 not see thvir way. 



The gravid females must necessarily spend a large part of each day 

 in seeking food, and do not travel so fast as the male seals. Their exer- 

 tions are necessarily very taxing to their strength and require them 

 to sleep frequently during the day. 



I have made this statement of facts and conclusions, as T draw them 

 from the evidence, to support the further conclusion of fact, which, I 

 think, is unavoidable, that the war upon the gravid female seals is 

 like a war upon the women and children of a nation, which all, except 

 the most depraved of savage nations, abhor. True, these are beasts; 

 but they are harmless, docile, useful beasts, and very helpless, and 

 when they are denied any more protection by the supposed law of 

 nations against the mercenary ferocity of the pelagic sealer than is 

 given to tigers or serpents, while I am empowered to vote in this Tri- 

 bunal, which is now their only protector, I must vote at least to 

 disarm the jiebigic sealer of his double-barreled shotgun, or else to 

 confine his warfare to an area of waters and to a close season where 

 his powers of destruction will not exterminate the race. 



If I could find no better reason for restraining tlie pelagic hunters 

 from the use of double-barreled shotguns in their "sportsmanlike" 

 business of killing gravid females and nursing mother seals in order to 

 earn $10 a i^iece from each pelt, I would join my voice with that of every 

 respectable legislature in the world in their careful and highly penal 

 enactments for the prevention of cruelty to animals, and wonld at least 

 put the female seals under the protection of proper regulations to be 

 awarded by this Tribunal. 



On this point I will quote fi'om The ISTaturalist's Library (p. 81), which 

 thus describes the cruelties inflicted upon these valuable, docile, and 

 harmless animals : 



Before proceeding to make the few remarks which our limits allow 

 on the valuable products derived from these animals, we would say a 

 word or two upon their capture. They are exceedingly tenacious of life, 

 and many cruelties have been perpetrated upon tbem, which most who 

 have witnessed declare to be too horrible for description, and over 

 which we willingly draw a veil. If life is to be sacrificed, there is a 



