{53] MATERIALS FOR A HISTORY OF THE SWORD-FISHES. 341 
was all two or three hours they was at it. I don’t think they leaves him 
till they kills him.” 
Egede puts on record the belief of Danish explorers of the last century : 
“The Sword-fish who is the Whales greatest Enemy; and when he 
kills one eats nothing but his Tongue, leaving the rest to the Shark, 
Walrus and Birds of Prey.” * 
The last quotation is especially important, since it shows how the 
Sword-fish and the killer-whale have been confused. It is still held, on 
good authority, that the killers eat the tongues of their victims.t 
At a meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History in 1864, in 
reply to a question of Dr. J. B. S. Jackson about the thrasher or swin- 
gle-tail shark recently exhibited in Boston, Captain Atwood said that 
they were abundant at Provincetown, though not so common as the 
mackerel-shark. He also observed that he placed no confidence what- 
ever in the stories current of attacks on the whales by the thrasher, 
believing them to be quite harmless and unable to hurt a dolphin. 
The story very likely arose from some peculiar movements made by 
the hump-backed whale. Sword-fish, he believed, might attack a whale 
and kill him, from what he had seen of the force of their thrusts into 
the bottom of vessels, though he has no evidence that they ever do 
attack them. He was not aware, either, that the thrasher ever uses his 
tail for offensive purposes. t 
*Hans Egede, Natural History of Greenland, 1741, p. 37. 
t‘*Three or four of these voracious animals do not hesitate to grapple with the 
largest baleen-whales, and it is surprising to see those leviathans of the deep so com- 
pletely paralyzed by the presence of their natural although diminutive enemies. 
Frequently the terrified animal—comparatively of enormous size and superior 
atrength—evinces no effort to escape, but lies in a helpless condition, or makes but 
little resistance to the assaults of its merciless destroyer. The attack of these wolves 
of the ocean upon their gigantic prey may be likened, in some respects, to a pack of 
hounds holding the stricken deer at bay. They cluster about the animal’s head, some 
of their number breaching over it, while others seize it by the lipsand haul the bleed- 
ing monster under water; and when captured, should the mouth be open, they eat 
out its tongue. We saw an attack made by three killers upon a cow-whale and her 
ealf, in a lagoon on the coast of Lower California, in the spring of 1858. The whale 
was of the California gray species, and her young was grown to three times the bulk 
of the largest killers engaged in the contest, which lasted for an hour or more. They 
made alternate assaults upon the old whale and her offspring, finally killing the latter, 
which sunk to the bottom, where the water was five fathoms deep. During the strug- 
gle the mother became nearly exhausted, having received several deep wounds about 
the throat and lips. As soon as their prize had settled to the bottom the three orcas 
descended, bringing up large pieces of flesh in their mouths, which they devoured 
after coming to the sarface. While gorging themselves in this wise, the old whale 
made her escape, leaving a track of gory water behind. Instances have been known 
on the northwestern coast where a band of orcas laid siege to whales that had been 
killed by whalemen, and which were being towed to the ship, in so determined a 
manner that, although they were frequently lanced, cut with boat-spades, they took 
the dead animals away from their human captors, and hauled them under water out 
of sight.”—(C. M. Scammon, Marine Mammals, p. 89.) 
t Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. vol. x, 186466, p. 82. 
