158 TIIE OCEAN. 



mouth and contracting the muscles of the throat, the 

 flesh is pursed up again into folds, and the water is 

 driven, as in the former case, through the whalebone, 

 which secures the food. 



The Whales, gigantic as thev are, vet having little 

 power of offence, find 10 their cost, in common 

 with nobler creatures, that harmlessness is often no 

 resource against violence. Several species of the 

 voracious Sharks make the Whale the object of 

 their peculiar attacks; the Arctic Shark (Scymnus 

 borealis) is said, with its serrated teeth, to scoop out 

 hemispherical pieces of flesh from the Whale's body 

 as big as a man's head, and to proceed without mercy 

 until its appetite is satiated. Another Shark, often 

 called the Thresher (Carcharias vul-pes), which is 

 sometimes upwards of twelve feet long, is said to 

 use its muscular tail, that is nearly half its whole 

 length, to inflict terrible slaps on the Whale; though 

 one would be apt to imagine that if this whipping 

 were all, the huge creature would be more fright- 

 ened than hurt. The Sword-fish (Xiphias gladius), 

 however, in the long and bony spear that projects 

 from its snout, seems to be furnished with a weapon 

 which may reasonably alarm even the leviathan of 

 the deep, especially as the will to use his sword, if 

 we may believe eye-witnesses, is in nowise deficient. 

 The late Captain Crow records an incident of this 

 kind with much circumstantiality : " One morning," 

 he observes, "during a calm, when near the He- 

 brides, all hands were called up at 3 a.m. to witness 

 a battle between several of the fish, called Threshers, 

 or Fox Sharks, and some Sword-fish, on one side, 



