SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



349 



(b) Wlieu did this scraping of the rookery margins and overdriving 

 begin? There is no evidence that either began prior to 1890. Elliott 

 failed to observe or record either between 187U and 1S7U. He advances 

 in his report of 1890 no evidence whatever on the subject, though lie 

 alleges at a single place that the natives assured him u that they had 

 been driving seals in this method ever since 1885; had been obliged to 

 or go without seals." 



This statement attributed to the natives is wholly uncorroborated, 

 nor does "it appear in their examinations, which are given at pages 300 

 to 304; that it is in conflict with the evidence of Mr. Goff will be shown 

 hereafter. 



(c) Mr. Elliott thinks that the necessity which leads to overdriving, 

 namely, a scarcity of killable males, began to exhibit itself as early as 

 1879, and in proof of this he alleges that a hitherto untouched reserve 

 was then resorted to, namely, Zapadnie. Furthermore, he supposes 

 that this scarcity of killable seals, making redriving essentially neces- 

 sary, was decisively manifested in 18SU and continually thereafter by 

 the fact that a constant resort was from that time made to theretofore 

 "untouched sources of supply" (VI, VIII, IX). In this particular also 

 he is totally in error. No such supposed "untouched sources of supply' 7 

 then, or ever, existed. Zapadnie and Polavina are intended by him. 

 They had been systematically drawn upon from the first. (Vol. II, 

 Appendix to United States case, pp. 117-127; United States counter 

 case, pp. 78, 79.) 



Mr. Elliott's error in this respect is the more inexcusable, since the 

 official island records were at his disposal and appear to have been 

 examined by him. The following tables showing the drives that were 

 actually made from Zapadnie and Polavina are taken from the British 

 argument, page 103 : 



(In examining tables in the United States case, Appendix Vol. II, 

 pp. 117-127, it should be remembered that "Zapadnie" and "Southwest 

 Bay" are two names for the same place, and so also are "Polavina" 

 and "Halfway Point," the latter term being the English for Polavina.) 



(d) Upon this basis of utter misapprehension Elliott proceeds forth- 

 with to construct a theory, and his theory as far outruns his supposed 

 facts as those supposed facts do the truth. For he proceeds to assume 

 that the driving and redriving of seals have been gradually increasing 

 from year to year and very rapidly since 1884-85, that the process of 

 driving in any form renders those seals which are turned back from the 

 killing grounds worthless for rookery service, and that the work of 

 destruction thereby produced "set in from the beginning, twenty years 

 before 1890" (pp. 7 to 10). 



(e) He introduces no proof that driving; overdriving, or redriving of 

 any sort ever injured the generative organs of a seal which was allowed 



