HUNTING THE SEA OTTER. 119 



attacking marine mammalia, later observation has estab- 

 lished their carnivorous habits. In a paper read before the 

 Royal Danish Society in 1864, Professor Escricht gave an 

 account of his own examination of one of these animals^ 

 which had been found floating off the coast of Jutland, in 

 the stomach of which, in a more or less digested state, 

 were found no fewer than thirteen common porpoises and 

 fourteen seals ; all of the latter were flayed, nor was there 

 any sign of the skins in the stomach, but hanging from the 

 teeth was one completely turned inside out. 



It is, therefore, evident that the prey, after being 

 swallowed, is stripped of its skin by the powerful action of 

 the walls of the stomach during the process of digestion, 

 through the rent produced at their capture, and thus the 

 skin is disgorged, like that of the mouse by the owl. This? 

 rejection of the skin by the " killers " was observed by 

 Pliny, though his interpretation of the fact was incorrect. 

 For he tells us (Lib. V., caps. 5, 6) that the "orca" which 

 was shut up in the harbour of Istia, where it was attacked 

 and killed by the Emperor Claudius, had been tempted into 

 that part of the sea by the wreck of a vessel laden with 

 hides, on which it had been feeding for several days. 

 What Pliny saw during the incarceration of the animal in 

 the clear water was nothing more than the result of the 

 " killer's " usual habit, and the great naturalist had invented 

 a cause to account for the phenomenon, after the ancient 

 method of deduction. 



It is probable that the mistake so frequently met with of 

 confounding the swordfish with the orca in such attacks 

 upon the whale originated with Martens, who was surgeon 

 aboard a whaler in 1671 ; for he mentions having witnessed, 

 during a storm near the Shetlands, a violent struggle 

 between a whale and some "killers" (Schwertjische}. 

 The same writer also states that he was informed by the 

 whalers that they sometimes fell in with many swordfish 

 engaged with a whale ; that they \vaited until it had 

 succumbed to its enemies, when they took possession of 



