ORAL ARGUMENT OF FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 325 



And I want to have it well understood — and the question put by the 

 learned President makes uie anxious that I should be understood as 

 saying, that absolute and religious respect is paid to the life of the female 

 on the island, and that even this killing of male pups has been stopped. 

 We do not now allow, even for the purpose of food, the male pups lo be 

 killed since this diminution in the supply of seals has been manifest. 

 The inhabitants must provide themselves with other food ; they are at 

 liberty to eat the carcasses of those that are killed for their skins, but 

 it is forbidden to kill a pup even for purposes of food. 



Then there is on the same page the evidence of Mr. Eedpath, one of 

 the witnesses we select as being sufficiently reliable. He is a man who 

 had been employed in these islands since 1875. 



After learning to swim, the pups still draw their sustenance from the cows, and I 

 liave noticed at the annual killing of pups for food in November that their stomachs 

 ■were always full of milk and nothing else, although the cows had left the islands 

 some days before, I have no knowledge of the pups obtaining sustenance of any kind 

 except that furnished by the cows; nor have I ever seen anything but milk in a dead 

 pup's stomach. 



If this man is a truthful witness that part of the case is disposed of. 

 I will now read, from page 114 of oar Case, a brief extract, although 

 I have already touched upon the same subject: 



A cow, as soon as a pup is brought forth, begins to give it nourishment; the act 

 of nursing taking place on land and never in water, and she will only suckle her own 

 oft'spring. 



That is what I have been endeavouring to demonstrate. 



These facts are verified by many others experienced in the habits of 

 seals; and upon this subject, as to which enquiry was made by the 

 learned President of the Tribunal Mr. Morgan says: 



The pup does not appear to recognise its mother, attempting to draw milk from 

 any cow it comes in contact with; but a mother will at once recognise her own pup 

 and will allow no other to nurse her. This I know from often observing a cow 

 light oif other pups who approached her, and search out her own pup from among 

 them, which I think she recognises by its smell and cry. 



And Mr. Falconer, another witness who has had very long and exten- 

 sive experience, says : 



A mother will at once recognise her pup by its cry, hobbling over a thousand 

 bleating pups to reach her own, and every other approaching her save this little 

 animal, she will drive away. These facts are verified by many others experienced 

 in the habits of seals. 



Now, in this volume that I was calling attention to a moment ago, 

 volume the 2nd arranged by subjects, there is a mass of testimony from 

 which I will only briefly extract passages. The Arbitrators will do us 

 the justice to observe that we have made every ettbrt, and the most 

 diligent efforts to satisfy their conscience upon the facts, and that we 

 have produced witnesses not only in great numbers but of very high 

 character. 



I now read from page 144. The oldest sealer on the Island, who had 

 lived there 50 years, says : 



The mother seals know their own pups by smelling them, and no seal will allow 

 any but her own pup to suck her. 



Then, on page 140, there is a citation, also from Mr. Bryant, whom I 

 have just mentioned, in which he says : 



I am positive that if a mother seal was killed her pup must inevitably perish by 

 starvation. As evidence of this fact I will state that I have taken stray, motherless 

 pups found on the sand beaches and placed them upon the breeding rookeries beside 

 milking females, and in all instances these pups have finally died of starvation. 



