COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 117 



appeal to such laws as those of the distribution of allied 

 species in separate areas, and those of animal migration, 

 ratlier than to the facts in respect to the fur-seals which 

 are here more directly in point. 



FITR-SEALS OP THE NORTH PACIFIC ORIOINALLY FROM 



A COMMON SOURCE. 



It is, however, perfectly obvious, under any hypothesis, 

 that the fur-seals of the two groups of islands (between 

 which it is now attempted to draw what, it is submitted, 

 is a purely arbitrary line) must originally have reached 

 these islands either from some common source or by trav- 

 ersing the waters between the islands themselves. It is 

 not alleged in the Case of the United States that they j^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ 

 were separately created on the several islands. There is iw assigned for 

 at the present time no barrier whatever, either of land, or ",',*,';j',^"|,'[cation"^ 

 such as might arise from the temperature of the water or - 

 of the air, to render it difficult for seals from one of these 

 groups of islands to reach the other group; but, on the 

 contrary, all the circumstances are such as to afford the 

 greatest facility for such intercommunication by marine 

 animals. There is therefoie no assignable reason, either of 

 a ])ractical or a theoretical kind, why such intercommuni- 

 cation as must at one time have existed should have ceased 

 to-day. 



EVIDENCE QUOTED IN THE CASE OF THE UNITED STATES 

 IS ALONE SUFFICIENT TO SHOW THAT INTERMINGLINO 

 MUST OCCUR. 



But it is unnecessary to rely upon abstract principles, 

 or on the more or less valid deductions from these, to 

 which an appeal is chiefly made on the point here under 

 discussion in the Case of the United States. It is of course 

 quite impossible to follow out the courses of individual 

 seals at sea; but in addition to the opinions quoted on a 

 previous page, from persons more or less familiar with seal 

 life in the North Pacific, a considerable body of evi- 

 135 deuce respecting the actual distribution of the fur- 

 seal at sea has now been collected. 



Thus even in the case of the United States, it is stated ^Tinted states 

 only that "between parallels [sic] 174° west and 175° east Case, p. 97. 

 seals are seldom seen"; or, in other words, that seals are 

 seldom seen in the vicinity of a middle part of the length 

 of the Aleutian chain, about 420 miles in length. Taking 

 into consideration the i)elagic habits of the seal, the vast 

 extent of its range throughout the Pacific, and the fact 

 that it often wanders far in ])ursuit of food fishes while at 

 sea, the statement thus made, even if established, would iwd., Appen- 

 only go a very small way towards proving the absence of *^'''' '^■"••'•p-**'^- 

 intermingling in this particular region. As a matter of 

 fact, the statement is erroneous. 



In the evidence quoted by the United States on this 

 point, it is elsewhere shown that seals which are sxipposed 

 to belong to the Commander Islands have been noticed in 



