SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE. 231 



but whether this disposition is preserved and exhibited in the water, and 

 how or whether this is a disappearing trait, does not appear. Two pups 

 are not infrequently dropped at a birth, and the mothers, with a generous 

 disregard for the ordinary rules of maternity in nature, suckle their own 

 when it is convenient, but take up other pups indifferently, pro- 

 vided the strange offspring does not betray the odor of fresh milk. 

 By this indiscriminate display of maternal instinct the generality of 

 pups are supported until they are able to procure their own food. 

 The loss of an individual mother becomes in consequence of this a 

 matter of small moment, and, to make the peculiarity of the animal 

 especially remarkable, it is said to abstain, during several weeks of 

 the nursing period, from seeking food for itself and for the young 

 offspring that would generally be supposed to drain its vitality. Such 

 is the seal and such are the habits, especially of the females, as seen 

 and described by the British Commissioners. 



The expression of an opinion so directly in conflict with those gen- 

 erally received would seem to require the most cogent proof's. Reliable 

 authorities should be cited and their names given. Hazardous conjec- 

 tures should be wisely laid aside; ignorant, hasty, and prejudiced gos- 

 sip should be treated as it deserves, and some effort made to reconcile 

 individual observation with generally accepted and accredited facts. 



The counsel for the United States have no hesitation in saying that 

 if the question to be decided w r ere one in which the common-law rules 

 of evidence prevalent in both parties to the Treaty were applied, they 

 would respectfully insist, with much confidence, that there is no dispute 

 really as to the main facts in this case. A controversy as to facts in 

 the juridical sense implies an assertion on the one side and a contra- 

 diction on the other 5 but contradictions can not be predicated on state- 

 ments unauthenticated by proof and unsupported by general experience. 

 It would suffice to show that the Eeport of the Commissioners from 

 Great Britain simply presents the assertions and conjectures of gentle- 

 men who, however respectable their character may be, were not called 

 upon to express, and are not justified in laying down conclusions, except 

 in so far as they have reached them by an examination into actual facts, 

 the sources of which both Governments would be entitled to consider. 

 Justice to the disputants, as well as a proper respect for the Tribunal, 

 would seem to dictate this necessity of avoiding the rash expression of 

 conjectures generally unsupported, but occasionally founded on other 



