ALLEGED EVILS OF DRIVING. 127 



THE ANIMAL DRIVEN. 



If we suppose that auy rejected seal is driven fifteen times in five years we 

 have made a liberal estimate. This means an average of 15 miles of land travel for 

 eacli animal, for the drives on the islands do not average more than a mile in length. 

 The seals, as we have already seen in the description of the drive, are allowed to take 

 their own time and rest frequently on the journey. The animal, moreover, is not ill 

 adapted to land travel. It is not a fish, but a bear which has become adapted to life 

 in the water. It can and does voluntarily climb cliffs which a. man would find 

 difficulty in scaling. It makes considerable journeys of its own accord. When on 

 its hauling grounds, it is constantly in motion, pitted against its fellows in contests 

 requiring violent exertion. On its migrations it is capable of swimming thousands 

 upon thousands of miles and buffeting the storms of an unusually tempestuous sea. 

 Such is the animal which is supposed to be fatally, or at least permanently, injured 

 by an average of 3 miles of laud travel annually in five years. The conclusion is 

 preposterous. 



THE THEORY INTANGIBLE. 



When we come to scrutinize Mr. Elliott's theory, we can not find a tangible bit of 

 evidence to support it. There was no dearth of bulls in 1890. He found 12,000 bulls 

 on the rookeries, with more to spare idle on the sand beaches. This was a number 

 entirely adequate to the needs of the herd. The presence of idle bulls showed there 

 were more than enough. It is true he asserts that the bulls were impotent. Why 

 they should seek the rookeries in this condition is not explained. Furthermore, Mr. 

 Elliott has not, in support of this charge of impotency, recorded the dissection of a 

 single animal, the only way by which the fact of impotency could be ascertained. 



Mr. Elliott declares that no fresh male life existed in reserve to replenish this 

 wornout stock. In the face of this statement he records, however, in his data for the 

 killings he witnessed, the rejection of more than 1,100 young half bulls, which are 

 just the class he says does not exist. He lays great stress upon the strain and 

 exertion which the few miles of land travel produces in the driven seal, and asserts 

 that practically none of them survive it. Of the thousands rejected under his eyes 

 on the killing grounds in 1890, he records but a single instance of death resulting 

 from this cause, and inasmuch as no autopsy examination is recorded, we have only 

 his opinion in the matter and must dissent from it. 



When we attempt to fit this theory of overdriving to the conditions during the 

 period prior to 1890, we meet with no great success. That the driving in these years 

 did not kill the 2 and 1 year old animals driven is shown by the fact that these 

 seals appeared each year as 3-year olds to be driven. From the younger males so 

 released each year and from these alone could the killable seals of subsequent years 

 come. That the bulls serving the rookeries in these years were not impotent is shown 

 by the number of young 1 males which the hauling grounds were able to supply. The 

 thousands of yearlings which he has recorded as turned back from the killing grounds 

 in 1890 show clearly enough that the bulls were not impotent in 1888. Subsequent 

 events show ;is clearly that the bulls he saw in 1890 were not impotent. 



ITS LOGICAL CONCLUSION. 



This contention as to the effects of overdriving, pushed to its logical conclusion, 

 means that animals are killed by it which persist in appearing afterwards distinctly 



