ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 157 



the other auimals, like wild geese, and swans and deer, that the dispo- 

 sition to return has been created by man. Suppose it was created by 

 man in those instances, and not created by man in the case of the seals. 

 Would that make any diifereuce? No. The public and social beuelits 

 wliich result from an award of property are the same in the one case 

 as in the other. But it is not true, this suggestion that the instinct is 

 created in tlie case of the other animals. The instinct to return is nat- 

 ural in all the cases alike. Man only acts upon it; and lie acts upon it 

 in the one case just as he at;ts upon it in the other. If there was not a 

 natural instinct to return in the case of wild geese and swans, they 

 conkl not be made to return. It is their native qualities, their natural 

 instincts, which are acted upon by the art and industry of man and 

 which produce the useful result; and they are acted upon in the case of 

 the seals just as much. Of course it is true that the wanderings of the 

 seals from the place to which they thus resort are much wider and more 

 protracted than in the case of the other animals; but has it ever been 

 suggested in the case of the other animals that the question wliether 

 an award of property could be made would depend u])on the extent of 

 their wanderings'? Xot at all. i^J^o matter liow widely they may stray, 

 no matter how long they maybe absent, so long as you can say that the 

 animus revertendi remains, so long the property exists and will be pro- 

 tected. 



In respect to seals, we may say, with a certainty and absoluteness 

 which cannot be declared with reference to other animals, that tlie ani- 

 mus revertendi does always exist. It may be said — indeed, is said, as I 

 observe, in the argument of my learned friends on the other side — that 

 the seals do not return to the same particular si>ot. It is said that a 

 seal may go one year to the Island of St. George and in another year 

 he may go to the Island of St. Paul. Of what consequence is that? 



Mr. Foster. That is not proved. It is a mere supi)osition. 



.Mr. Carter. That may well enough be true, for aught we know. I 

 shall not take pains to undertake to show that it is not true; for it is a 

 circumstance of absolutely no importance. The only important thing 

 about it is that the animal should return to the human owner; that he 

 should return to the custody of the owner who has exhibited the care 

 and diligence which enables him to put that return to advantage. All 

 these islands are the property of o)ie proprietor, and all the benefits 

 which can possibly arise from the return of an animal to a particular 

 place, and a submission of himself to the power of man, can be reaped 

 in the case of the seals. 



It is suggested that we are not certain that the seals that come this 

 year are the same seals that were there last year, and it is suggested 

 that there is an intermingling between the two herds on the two sides 

 of the Pacific Ocean ; that seals which frequent the Commander Islands, 

 belonging to Russia, are found mingled with the h.erds which go to the 

 Pribilof Islands. That is all conjecture. There is not an item of evi- 

 dence tending to show that any such commingling as that occurs in point 

 of fact. It is against the teachings of natural history. It is against 

 everything which we know in reference to the habits of this jiarticular 

 herd. All ptirties were agreed, until it became of some importance to 

 suggest some failure of identification, that this particular herd that 

 visits the Pribilof Islands confines itself to the western coast of America. 

 It goes nowhere else. These are its sole places of resort for the pur- 

 ])oses of breeding; and it is iiroved with a certainty which any court of 

 justice would act i\]Mm anywhere that any seal found u]>on the western 

 coaj-t of America belongs to that ijarticular herd and makes those islands 

 his home. 



