ORAL ARGUMENT OF FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 323 



therefore select some of tlie most important witnesses, and shall read 

 what they say upon these subjects. As an apoloyy, let me say, if I 

 am consuming much time, I am comforted by the reflection that I am 

 saving the Arbitrators some labor for when they consider the case they 

 will have become imbued with the facts and thoroughly understand 

 them. Thiti will be an advantage when my friends come to answer, as 

 the Court will then be fully ai)prised of the position tliat w^e take and 

 endeavor to sustain by testimony. The page is 127 of a volume which 

 for convenience has been printed and bound. It is a collation of the 

 testimony upon every subject. It is a sort of digest which has been 

 very convenient to Counsel, and will be very convenient, I have no 

 doubt, to the High Court. 



Mr. Bryant is one of the witnesses who have been most frequently 

 cited. From the permanency of his tenure (he was on the island seven 

 years), it is presumable he is a reliable man when he speaks of the 

 things he has seen. I consider myself at liberty to dispute the con- 

 clusions of any witness on my side, and on the other side, when they 

 are merely an inference which his mind gathers from facts; but when 

 a man, in the ijosition of this witness whose i)osition recommends him as 

 a credible witness, makes a deliberate statement I am bound to accept 

 his testimony unless it is cimtradicted either by obvious facts or by 

 witnesses equally credible with himself. Mr. Bryant who was in charge 

 of the islands from 1870 to 1877, says: 



The pup is nursed by its mother from its birth on the islands, the mother leaving 

 the islands at dift'ereut intervals of time after the pup is 3 or 4 days old. I have 

 seen pups "which I had previously marked by a ribbon — I suppose those belong to 

 us — leit for three or four days consecutively, the mothers going into the water to 

 feed or bathe. A mother seal will instantly recognize her offspring from a large 

 group of pups on the rookery, distinguishing it by its cry and by smell ; but I do 

 not think a pup can tell its own mother, as it will nose about any cow which comes 

 near it. 



His inference is, it cannot recognize its mother. Perhaps that is 

 true. On the other hand, it may be that the hungry pup does not care 

 whether the sustenance is furnished by its mother or any other nurs- 

 ing female. At all events, the pup does go about trying to get milk 

 from any seal that it can find, whereas the mother with the niaternal 

 instinct given her to provide for her own offspring and no other, will 

 not be satisfied until she has found her offspring and nourished it. 



The President. — Does not that contradict the assertion that when 

 the mother is killed, the pup must necessarily perish. 



Mr. CoUDERT. — Ko, it sustains it. Perhaps I have not made myself 

 clear, or I do not understand the question. 



The President. — If the pup takes milk from another nurse. 



Mr. CouDERT. — The pup tries to take milk, and the mother does not 

 permit it. The pup will take care of itself if the mothers will allow it. 

 The hungry stonuich in the pup has no regard to the rights of prop- 

 erty, and the pup will go round poaching wherever it can. No human 

 being can tell this Court whether it knows its mother or not. We may 

 infer if we please from its going about, as some do, that it does not 

 recognize its mother. I am inclined to think that this is no proof at 

 all, and that this hungry pup is taught by nature to feed wherever it 

 can procure food. 



But where the mischief comes, and the destruction begins, is that the 

 pup's theory is not accepted by the mother. She preserves her treasures 

 for her offspring alone, and when she is dead then the fountain of life is 

 dried up. And let me here follow out the idea of the learned President 

 and say that even if it were so — even if it were true that the cow will 



