290 ORAL ARGUMENT OF FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 



tbey come to these islands because they cannot help it. If they did 

 not they wonld perish. If we repulsed them they would perish. If 

 they had no such place as ours — and that is the only i)lace that they 

 have — the race would die. 



This essentially marine animal, or pelagic animal, lives upon the 

 land about eight months in the year. If it did not live eight months 

 in the year there, notwithstanding its pelagicity — to take the new and 

 elegant expression that has been coined, if not for this case, at least 

 recently introduced — notwithstanding its pelagicity, it would perish; 

 and what is still more remarljable, if it is born at sea it dies! It is 

 sometimes spoken of as a lish, but this so-called tish must live on land, 

 during a ])art at least of its existence; and if it is deprived of a terres- 

 trial abode it must perish from the surface of the earth and of the 

 water. It is a tame animal. It is easily taken. It is handled as 

 readily as a lamb. The process of selection for slaughter on the islands 

 shows this to be true. The animals are driven precisely as sheep, 

 and apparently with more ease. These animals fcr<x naturcv that are 

 likened to wild geese and bees and the like, are so domestic, if that 

 be the appropriate exjurssion, or so tame, so gentle, so easily handled, 

 that they can be driven by a boy into a pen hundreds of them at a time; 

 those that ought tobe killed may then be selected, and the rest dismissed. 



I submit that under those circumstances to call those animals ferae 

 naturw is a misnomer. (Tranting, if you please, that they are amphib- 

 ious animals, granting that they are put to no useful purpose, except 

 for food and the use of their skins, how and in what sense are they 

 animals fer(v natnra'f They go to sea, it is true, but only because 

 there they find their food. As one of the witnesses whose deposition 

 I shall read to the court in a moment has said, not only is the seal a 

 domestic animal, but it is one of the most protitable of domestic ani- 

 mals. Without going so far and, looking simply at the reason of the 

 law, I shall claim that it being established that these animals live on 

 tliese islands, live on land, protected by man during the greater part 

 of the year, and never leave — never for a day or for a season — without 

 the intent of returning, that in the eye of that law which this high 

 court is called u])on to administei' they are not animals ferw naturae but 

 must be likened for the purpose of this discussion to domestic animals, 

 raised, cultivated, lirotected, handled and used for beneficent purposes 

 by the hand of man. They do not Hy off as bees, wiiich may or may 

 not return; and yet bees are protected so long as they have this ani- 

 mum rcrertendl. They are not like wild geese or wild ducks. They are, 

 if you please, of their own kind. The seal is an animal sni generis. It 

 may be called an amphibious animal, though I do not know that even 

 that would be a just expression. The otter has been likened to it in 

 this discussion ; and j '^ : it has been said by Buffon that it is not correct 

 to call the otter an a !! ibious animal, because he partakes so largely 

 of the character of a 1 i.;d animal. 



r>ut however this n iy be, call the seal, if you please, an amphibious 

 animal, with a single home which it never leaves without the intent to 

 return. Where such an animal is concerned is there no protection 

 because the seas are free? The freedom of the sea is as important to 

 the United States as to any nation in the world. I might say, owing 

 to the length and extent of its seaboard more important than to any 

 other nation, (4reat Britain perhaps excepted; and if it be that we are 

 by our contention attempting in any way to interfere with the freedom 

 of the sea, then we are wrong. The freedom of the sea is more impor- 

 tant than the life of the seal." It should not be interfered with. But I 



