498 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
Stated briefly, the position of the United States in the matter appears to be based 
on the idea of allowing, for a money consideration, the slaughter of the maximum 
possible number of seals compatible with the continued existence of the animals on 
the Pribylov Islands, while, in order that this number shall not be reduced, no 
sealing is to be permitted elsewhere. 
451 Such an assumption can be based, in this case, on one or other only of two 
grounds: 
1. That Behring’s Sea is a mare clausum. 
2. That each and every fur-seal is the property of the United States. 
Both claims have been made in one form or other, but neither has, so far as I 
know, been officially formulated. 
The first is simply disproved by the geographical features of Behring’s Sea, by the 
fact that this sea and Behring’s Strait contribute the open highway to the Arctic 
and to part of the northern shore of Canada, by the previous action of the United 
States Government when this sea was nearly surrounded by Russian territory, and 
by the fact that from 1842 to the date of the purchase of Alaska fleets of United 
States and other whalers were annually engaged in Behring’s Sea. It is scarcely 
possible that any serious attempt will be made to support this contention. (Ban- 
croft’s History, vol. xxxiii, Alaska, p. 583 et seq.) 
The second ground of claim is candidly advanced by H. W. Elliott, who writes: 
“The fur-seals of Alaska, collectively and individually, are the property of the 
General Government. . . . . Every fur-seal playing in the waters of Behring’s 
Sea around about the Pribylov Islands, no matter if found so doing 100 miles away 
from those rookeries, belongs there, has been begotten and born thereon, and is the 
animal that the explicit shield of the law protects. No legal sophism or quibble can 
cloud the whole truth of my statement. . . . . . The matter is, however, now 
thoroughly appreciated and understood at the Treasury Department, and has been 
during the past four years, as the seal pirates have discovered to their chagrin and 
discomfiture.” (United States 10th Census, vol. viii, Fur-Seal Islands, p. 157.) 
Waiving for the moment the general objection which may be raised to the enforce- 
ment of such a principle on the high seas, an enforcement which the United States, 
in the interest of the Alaska Fur Company, appear to have undertaken, the facts 
upon which the assumption are based may be questioned. Mr. Elliott, in fact, him- 
self writes, on the same page (referring to the presence of a large sealing fleet in 
Behring’s Sea), that it conld not fail “in a few short years in so harassing and irri- 
tating the breeding seals as to cause their withdrawal trom the Alaska rookeries, 
and probable retreat to those of Russia, a source of undoubted Muscovite delight 
and emolument, and of corresponding loss and shame to us.” 
This remark implies that the seals may resort to either the Pribylov or the Kus- 
sian islands, according to circumstances; and who is to judge, in the case of a par- 
ticular animal, in which of these places it has been born? The old theory, that the 
seals returned each year to the same spot, has been amply disproved. Eliott him- 
self admits this, and it is confirmed (op. cit., p. 31) by Captain Charles Bryant, who 
resided eight years in the Pribylov Islands as Government Agent, and who, having 
marked 100 seals in 1870, on St. Paul Island, recognized, the next year, four of them 
in different rookeries on that island, and two on St. George Island. (Monograph on 
North American Pinnipedes, Allen, 1880, p. 401.) 
It is, moreover, by no means certain that the fur-seals breed exclusively on the 
Russian and United States Seal Islands of Behring’s Sea, though these islands are 
no doubt their principal and important breeding-places. They were formerly, 
according to Captain Shannon, found in considerable numbers on the coast of Cali- 
fornia; and Captain Bryant was credibly informed (‘‘ Marine Mammals of Coast of 
North-West North America,” pp. 152, 154, quoted by Allen, op. cit., p. 332) of the 
existence in recent years of small breeding colonies of these animals on the Queen 
Charlotte Islands of British Columbia. Mr. Allen further quotes from the observa- 
tions of Mr. James G. Swan, Field Assistant of the United States Commissioner of 
Fish and Fisheries: 
“Mr. Swan” (I quote from Mr. Elliott), “has passed near an average lifetime on 
the north-west coast, and has rendered to natural science and to ethnology efficient 
and valuable service.” 
His statements may therefore be received with respect. He writes: 
“The fact that they (the fur-seals) do bear pups in the open ocean, off Fuca Strait, 
is well established by the evidence of every one of the sealing captains, the Indians, 
and my own personal observations. Dr. Power says the facts do not admit of dis- 
pute. . . . Itseems as preposterous to my mind to suppose that all the fur-seals 
of the North Pacific go to the Pribyloy Islands as to suppose that all the salmon go 
to the Columbia or Fraser River or to the Yukon.” 
To this Professor D.S. Jordon, the well-known naturalist, adds: 
“‘T may remark that I saw a live fur seal pup at Cape Flattery, taken from an old 
seal just killed, showing that the time of bringing them forth was just at hand,” 
