88 COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



CONTENTION NOVEL AND UNPRECEDENTED. 



ORGANIZATION AND HABITS WHOLLY OPPOSED TO SUCH CONTEN- 

 TION. — SEALS FISH-LIKE IN FORM, AND HAVE FINS, NOT FEET. 



The iuitial assertion above quoted, which appears in the 

 first lines of the " Conchisions," or summing up of the 

 contentions held by the United States, is of a character 

 so unprecedented, and so entirely opposed to everything 

 known respecting the fur-seals or other allied animals, 

 that it is scarcely conceivable that it is intended seriously 

 to maintain it. It was certainly not to be anticipated that 

 it would be necessary, iu opposition to such a statement, 

 to point out that the habits and organization of the fur- 

 seal, with that of other pinnipeds (the sub-order to which 

 the fur-seal belongs), are directly the converse of those 

 formulated in the proposition just quoted: That the fur- 

 seal resorts to the land only for or in connection with its 

 reproduction ; that its stay upon the land is but temporary, 

 and is governed by the requirements of reproduction ; that 

 it remains on or about the land for a portion only of the 

 year; that, during the remaining, and much the greater, 

 part of each year, it is not only aquatic but pelagic in its 

 habit; that, in connection with this mode of life, its whole 

 form and organization is fitted for existence in the sea; 

 and that it is provided with fins and not with feet, as in- 

 deed is implied by the name of the zoological sub-order 

 under which it is included.* 



RARELY LANDS EXCEPT ON THE BREEDINO-PLACES. 



United States It is scarccly ncccssary to go further than the 



Case, p. i26etieq. 102 Umits of the Caso ])resented by the United States, to 



disprove the assertion just alluded to: — thus, on p. 

 126 ct seg., evidence is cited to show that "during their 

 migration," or, in other words, during that greater part of 

 the year in which the animal is not found upon the Priby- 

 loft' or other breeding-islands, the fur-seal never lands, and 

 does not even frequent "inland waters" — that, in effect, it 

 is pelagic in its habit of life. The facts contained in the 

 Report of the British Commissioners, and evidence con- 

 tained in the Appendix to this Counter-Case, show that 

 the seal does occasionally land even during the winter 

 months on the coasts of British Columbia, and that it also 



* In tlie oppnin.1,- paragraph of Lis technical characterization of the 

 animals of tlie siTb-ordcr J'inuipcdin, Professor Allen gives the first 

 and most distinctive character as follows: 



'• Limbs piuniform, or modified into swimming organs, and inclosed 

 to or heyond the elbows and knees Avithin the common integument." 

 ("Manual of North American Pinnipeds," p. 3.) 



Professor Sir W. II. Flower, K. C. B., F. R. S., similarly places this 

 character first, writing: 



"These [the rnmlpedia'] differfrom the rest of the Carni??ora mainly 

 in the structure of their limbs, Avhich are modified for aquatic pro- 

 gression, — the two proximal segments being very short aud i)artially 

 enveloped in the general iutegument of the body, whilethe third seg- 

 ment, especially in the hinder extremities, is elongated, expanded, 

 and webbed." ("EncyclopaMlia Britanuica," vol. xv. — "Study of 

 Mammals/' Flower and Lydekker.) 



