$56 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
been the slightest intimation in the annual declarations of the officers of the Gov- 
ernment of the least diminution or decrease of seal life on these islands since his 
work of 1874 was given to the world. 
He discredits the statements of these Agents as irreconcilable with the evidence 
of the decrease in the supply of young male seals. 
The Undersigned calls attention to the striking fact that the serious decrease now 
alleged has occurred, it is stated, principally in ‘the case of young males, while the 
United States Agents still persist in blaming pelagic sealing for its alleged disas- 
trous results to females. 
This position would appear to be as difficult of reconciliation as the statements of 
the other Agents are thought by Mr. Elliot to be. 
A glance at his figures, ‘which he states are so carefully and accurately compiled, 
discloses the fact that the percentage of the decrease in females is 624, while that in 
young seal pups is over 75. 
Mr. Elliot proceeds: “Naturally enough, being so long away from the field, on 
reading Mr. Charles J. Goff’s Report for the season’s work of 1889, I at once jumped 
to the conclusion that the pelagic sealing, the poaching, of 1886-88 was the sole cause 
of the shrinkage which he declared manifest on those rookeries and hauling-grounds 
of the Pribyloff Islands. . . . ” And he goes on to say that even then, after cal- 
culating the number of skins placed on the market by pelagic sealers, he could not 
satisfactorily charge the whole decrease to them. He states that the class from 
which 85 per cent. of the pelagic catch is drawn are “ females and young-born and 
unborn;” and while he expected this to work damage to the rookeries, he was wholly 
unprepared for an establishment of the correctness of Mr. Goff’s Report. 
“After an entire new and topographical survey and triangulation of the landed 
area of the seven rookeries of St. Paul Island and those of St. George Island,” Mr. 
Elliot is impressed with the bad effect of ‘‘ driving” the seals for years, which prac- 
tice, in his opinion, renders them unfit for service on the breeding-rookeries, ‘‘ being 
utterly demoralized in spirit and body,” and this is now admittedly the principal 
cause of the reported decrease in seal life. 
According to Mr. Elliot, pelagic sealing, or ‘‘poaching,” as he terms it, commenced 
in 1886. It continued under the harassing and embarrassing interference of the 
United States anthorities down to and including the year 1889—just four years. He 
describes the rookeries to have been ‘‘in splendid condition,” . . . when ‘ they 
passed into the hands of the United States.” Now, after twenty-two years of kill- 
ing operations on the islands, he suddenly discovers reasons to fear extermination of 
the seal species, and attributes the falling-off in a great degree to four years of 
pelagic sealing, beginning in 1886; in the face of this Statement, in the same Report, 
that ‘“‘that day in 1879 when it became necessary to send a sealing gang from St. 
Paul village over to Zapodnie to regularly drive from that hitherto untouched 
reserve, was the day that danger first appeared in tangible form since 1870—since 
1857 for that matter.” That is to say, seven years before much-abused pelagic seal- 
ing, according to Mr. Elliot, had begun. 
Thus, in the opinion of the Undersigned, in the light of this and similar Reports, 
are his repeatedly expressed views vindicated, as also is the fact established that the 
protection to seal life on the islands, provided by the United States Government, is 
and has been wholly inadequate. 
The Reports, however, reveal another fact entirely opposed to the contentions of 
the United States authorities and Agents, and of Professor Elliot himself. 
86 This fact is, that the whole system of conducting the sealing industry, on the 
only places where it has been held seals could be protected, has been con- 
ceived and based upon lamentably erroneous ideas. 
The state of affairs thus recorded affords a fitting commentary upon a system of 
protection which will admit of the constant interference, dealing torture and death 
to these animals in a wild state, on grounds chosen by them for annually performing 
their functions of procreation. It is opposed to the first instinct of all animal 
nature—that of self-preservation—and is admirably adapted to toa the seals 
from the breeding-rookeries to seek other haunts. 
While the Undersigned does not consider it necessary in this connection to refer 
to the question of right raised by the term ‘ poacher,” as applied by Mr. Elliot to 
pelagic sealers, this question being one affecting an entirely distinct feature in the 
controversy in no way connected with the question of the preservation of seal life, he 
desires in passing to briefly state the following: 
It has been clearly established that no attempt has ever been made by any of the 
Canadian sealing fleet to operate within the territorial waters of the United States. 
The unwarranted interference by United States revenue-cutters has in every case 
been out in the open waters of the sea, free to them and to the subjects and citizens 
of all other nations. 
In his Report Mr. Elliot dwells at considerable length upon the history of the seal- 
ing industry of the Pribyloff Islands under the Russian rule previous to the acquisi- 
