COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 131 



year ]-)ecause the climatic conditions or the food supply become nnsnited. 

 to their needs; and that whenever the home of a species is so situated 

 as to provide a suitable climate and food supjily throughout the year 

 such species do not migrate. 



DR. MERBIAM ON SUMMER AND WINTER HOMES OF 

 MIGRATORY ANIMALS. 



It is, however, important to note the recent opinion of 

 one of the United States Commissioners in an opposite 

 sense, *. e., to the effect that tlie winter resorts of animals 

 breeding in the north may be eqnally entitled to be char- 

 acterized as a "trne home" of any si)ecies, the statement 

 referred to being in precise accord with the employment of - 

 the word "iiome" in the Report of the British Commis- 

 sioners. Dr. Merriani, in a critical.note apjjended to a work 

 by Professor W. W. Cooke, in fact, writes as follows: 



152 I cannot concur with Professor Cooke in the belief that "love "I^eport on 



of the nesting-ground .... is the foundation of the desire ?j"^^jj^*^?*j^"° 

 for migration." In a lecture on bird migration which it was my privl- gippj Vallev, " by 

 lege to deliver in the United .States National Museum on the 3d April, W. W. Cooke, 

 1886, I said: " .Some ornithologists of note have laid special stress 1888. United 

 upon the 'strong home affection ' which prompts birds to leave the ^^^^jj^^^^^^^jlj] 

 south and return to their breeding-grounds. To me this explanation cuhure, Div. of 

 is forced and unnecessary. Birds desert their winter homes because Ecou. Ornithol., 

 the food supply fails; because the climatic conditions become un- J^^ill- ^o- 2, p. 11 

 suited to their need ; because the approach of the breeding season ^ '^^ '°" ®'* 

 gives rise to physiological restlessness; and because they inherit an 

 irresistible impulse to move at this particular time of the year." — 

 C. H. M. 



ENORMOUS QUANTITY OF FOOD FISHES CONSUMED BY 

 SEALS WHEN IN THEIR WINTER HOME. 



In conclnding' the discussion of the group of questions 

 dealt with in this Chapter, it is desirable to draw attention 

 to the fact that the winter home or habitat of the fur-seal, 

 being, as it is, chiefly in the vicinity of the coast of British 

 Columbia, affords to the residents of that coast an excel- 

 lent ground of claim to participate in the profits derived 

 from the hunting of the fur-seal, in so far at least as any 

 such claim can be based on the habits and haunts of the 

 animal. This depends not so much on the near proximity Amount of tish 

 of the seals to this coast at the season mentioned, as on the consumed, 

 enormous quantity of food fishes which the seals consume 

 there, which, if not thus taken, would De available for the 

 direct support of the inhabitants. The inroads of the seals 

 ui)on the fisheries are, in fact, of a most serious kiml; and 

 any claim which necessitates the abstention from sealing of 

 the people so affected in the sole interests of a Cori)oration 

 or Goveinment which profits by the killing of the seals 

 upon their distant breeding-islands, must be considered as 

 essentially unjust. 



RESULTING DAMAGE TO FISHERIES. 



The injury done to fisheries by seals of all kinds, even British com- 

 when in comparatively small numbers, is well known. JJ'j^j^'j"^^^ 569^^' 

 What, then, must be the effect of vast bodies of fur-seals 

 known to congiegate on the coast of British Columbia, 



