HISTORY AND DETAILS OF WHALING. 261 



and were towing to the ship. And so furious and determined 

 were they, that notwithstanding they were lanced and cut most 

 dreadfully by the whalemen in order to drive them off, yet 

 they finally succeeded in getting the whale, and carried him 

 to the bottom. Old whalemen say that "killers " will eat no 

 part of the whale but his tongue. They attack him by the 

 head, and if possible get into his mouth and eat up his tongue. 

 The " killers " are a remarkably active fish, and endowed with 

 a set of sharp teeth which may well constitute them a power- 

 ful adversary even to the whale, and whose particular and 

 personal enemy they appear to be. 



The Whale's Love axd Care for its Offspring. The 

 strong affection of the whale towards its young has been 

 many times witnessed by whalemen ; and yet the nature of 

 their occupation is such, that they turn this interesting and 

 affecting feature of its character to a most fatal account. 

 They will try to strike the young one with the harpoon, and 

 if they effect this, are sure of the old one, for they will not 

 leave it. 



Mr. Scoresby mentions a case where a young whale Avas 

 struck beside its dam. She seized it and darted off, but the 

 fatal line was fixed in its body. Regardless of all that could 

 be done to her, she remained beside her dying offspring until 

 she was struck again and again, and finally perished. Some- 

 times, however, she becomes furious on these occasions, and 

 extremely dangerous. 



Another writer gives the following account of a case which 

 he witnessed in the Atlantic. Being out with fishing boats, 

 " we saw," says he, " a whale with her calf playing around 

 the coral rocks ; the attention which the dam showed to its 

 young, and the care which she took to warn it of danger, were 

 truly affecting. She led it away from the boats, swam around 

 it, and sometimes she would embrace it with her fins, and roll 

 over with it in the waves. We tried to get the « vantage 

 ground ' by going to seaward of her, and by that means drove 



