.222 WHALE AND THRESHER FIGHT. 



sometimes laid by common fowls, about 3iii. long by 

 2^iu. wide. At the top of the oviduct I found a mass 

 of ova united together in a sponge-like material ; they 

 varied in size from a hazel nut to the size of the head 

 of a pin, and lay close together ; each w\as perfect in 

 itself, and contained yellow albuminous fluid. There 

 must have been many thousands. This one fact shows 

 how little we know of the habits of sea-fish. I should 

 certainly have expected to find the egg of a 15ft. shark 

 more than Sin. long : the egg, jprobably, from the ap- 

 pearance of the specimen, was in a growing and unde- 

 veloped state. 



I have taken down, in his own words, the following 

 evidence as to the fights between the threshers and the 

 •whales in the northern seas, given by Mr. Hill, captain 

 of the North Sea trawler Hurricane. 



''The thresher sharks just do serve out the whales. 

 The sea sometimes is all blood. A whale once got 

 under our vessel (the Hurricane) to get away from these 

 threshers, and when she was there we were afraid to 

 throw a rope overboard, almost to walk about, for fear 

 she should chuck her tail, and punch a hole in our 

 vessel. She was full length in water as clear as gin, 

 right under our bottom, and laid as quiet as a lamb for 

 an hour and a half, and never moved a fin. Where 

 they had been a-thrashing of her the sea was just like 

 blood. I have seen these ere threshers fly out of the 

 water as high as the mast-head and down upon the 

 whale, while the sword-fish was a-pricking of un up 

 from underneath. There is always two of 'em, one up 

 and one under ; and I think they hunts together ; and 

 you can see the poor whale blow up in great agitation ; 

 and I be bound the pair on 'em don't leave him until 

 they have their penn'orth out of him. It's just for 



