COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 113 



ment was made on tlie same island, and, respecting the 100 

 seals then marked, it is said: 



EXPEKIMENTAL TKOOF OF INTERMINGLING ADDUCED. 



Of this iminber, duiiuf^ the summer of 1872, when I was there, the Census Report 

 natives fouud in tlieir driving of 75,000 seals from the different haul- P-31. 

 iiiir. grounds of St. Paul up to the village; killing-grounds, two on 

 Novastoshnah rookerj"^, 10 miles north of Lukannon [the point at 

 which the seals had been marked], and two or three from English Bay 

 and Tolstoi rookeries, 6 miles west by water; one or two were taken 

 on St. George Island, 3G miles to the south-east, and not one from 

 Lukannon was fouud among those that were driven up from there. 



The same, or a very similar, experiment is referred to by 

 Captain Bryant. 



In the Congressional lieport on the fur-seal fisheries of 

 Alaska, Dr. H. H. Mclntyre likewise states that — 



The seals are found indiscriminately on the two islands; that is, 50tli Cong. ,2nd 



seals born on St. George are iound on St. Paul, and vice vti'su. Sess., H. K. Re- 



* ' port 3883, p. 128. 



130 Apart from such definite experiments, and. over 



wider areas where, so far, such experiments have 

 not been possible, information as to changes in the resort 

 of seals as between one and another of the various breeding- 

 islands in the JSTorth Pacific, must depend largely upon the 

 opinions of those who have had occasion to study the habits 

 of the seal, and upon the general facts which such persons 

 have noted. 

 After detailing the above experiments, Mr. Elliott says : 



These experiments would tend to prove very cogently and conclu- "Cmitecl States 



sively, that when the seals approach rhe islands in the spring, they have ^^•^n^'i^ Report.p. 



nothing iu their minds but a general instinctive appreciation of the gee also 44th 



fitness of the land, as a whole; and no special fondness or determina- Cong., 1st Sess., 



tion to select any one particular siiot, not even the place of their birth. H. R. Report No. 

 ■> ^ 1 ' ^ 623, pp. 82, 83. 



He then proceeds to point out that the smell of the 

 rookery-grounds constitutes probably the chief incentive 

 to landing. 



THE EVIDENCE OF FUR-DEALERS CONCLUSIVELY PROVES 

 INTERMINGLING OF SEALS OF BOTH SIDES OF THE 

 PACIFIC. 



The evidence of the fur merchants already referred to, 

 is also of considerable im[)ortaiice in this connection, and 

 goes far to demonstrate beyond doubt that there is both 

 inteimingiing and interbreeding between the seals fre- 

 quenting the Pribyloff Islands and those frequenting the 

 Commander Islands, as the following extract will show. 

 William C. 13. Stamp, the head of a fur house established 

 seventy years, and a man with thirty years' experience in 

 the fur-seal business, states as follows: 



In my o]iinion there is no absolute line of demarcation between the Appendix, vol. 

 Co])per Island skins and Alaskas, and in inspecting the consign- i'-P- 2^5- 

 mcnts made each year from the i'ribyloff Islands through Messrs. 

 Laiiipsdu and Co., I have I'onnd a, certain ]icr<-entage of skins, which 

 were fac-similesof Coi)])er Island si<ins, and in the same way in inspect- 

 ing consignnit'iits of Cup])('r Island skins, I have seen skins which, had 

 I seen them elsewhere, I should have classed as Alaskas, and also a cer- 

 tain number of the intermediate degiees of similarity. 



B S, PT VIII 8 



