SWORD-FISH AND THRASHER. 101 



water, it has been observed by all who have 

 witnessed these strange combats, that it seems 

 to be the instinctive war policy of the sword-fish 

 to make his attack from below, thus causing the 

 whale to rise above the surface, which, under the 

 prick of the cruel sword of his enemy, he has 

 been known to do to a great height, the unre- 

 lenting thrasher meanwhile holding on like a 

 leech, and dealing his blows unsparingly through 

 the air with all the force of his lengthy frame, 

 sometimes twenty feet. 



In a statement made by a Kennebec ship- 

 master in 1818, and sworn to before a justice of 

 the peace in Kennebec county, Maine, it was 

 asserted that the notable sea serpent and whale 

 are sometimes found in conflict. At six o'clock 

 in the afternoon of June 21st, in the packet 

 Delia, plying between Boston and Hallowell, 

 when Cape Ann bore west southwest about two 

 miles, steering north north-east, Captain Shubael 

 West, and fifteen others on board with him, saw 

 an object directly ahead which he had no doubt 

 was the sea serpent, or the creature so often 

 described under that name, engaged in fight 



