SEALS AND WHALES OF THE BRLTLSH SEAS. 113 



harness requiring great strength and h'ghtness ; in this country, too, under the 

 name of porpoise-hide, it is now extensively used, and the salted skins sell for 

 from 3s. 6d. to 4s. 6d. per lb. The whale-ship, " Arctic," of Dundee, brought 

 home 600 skins from Davis Strait, in the season of 1880. The length of the 

 full-grown animal is about 16 ft, and its food consists of fishes, Crustacea, 

 and Cephalapods. 



THE GRAMPUS, OR KILLER. 



The common Grampus, or Killer {Ojxa gladiator^ Lacepede), (fig. 23) 

 is a well-known and widely-dispersed species, being found in both the North 

 Atlantic and Pacific Seas. Andrew Murray says " the common Grampus 

 tumbles through the heavy waves all the way from Britain to Japan, vid the 

 North-west Passage." In the British seas it is frequently met with, and has 

 occurred in several instances on the coast of Norfolk. This species is very 

 fierce, its appetite insatiable, and carnivorous in the strictest sense of the 

 word ; to the Greenland and White Whale, as well as to Porpoises and Seals, 

 it is an implacable enemy, and follows them ruthlessly. Dr. Brown says, 

 " the White Whale and Seals often run asiiore, in terror of this cetacean, and 

 I have seen Seals spring out of the water when pursued by it. The whalers 

 hate to see it, for its arrival is the signal for every Whale to leave that portion 

 of the ice."' Eschricht took out of the stomach of a Killer, 21 ft. long, which 

 came ashore in Jutland, no less than thirteen common porpoises and fourteen 

 Seals. 



The rounded, compact form of this species gives the idea of great strength 

 and swiftness, and the beautifully-polished glossy black skin of the back 

 contrasting with the equally pure and well-defined white of the lower parts 



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