The Killer Whale 43 



As with the sperm whales, so among the Right 

 Whales the school or family obtains, but in far smaller 

 numbers, and, indeed, it is not uncommon to see a 

 bull, two cows, and two calves comprising the whole 

 family. Moreover, there is none of that fierce com- 

 petition for the headship of the school so characteristic 

 of the great mammal of the tropical seas. Fights 

 between Right Whale bulls are unknown, at least to 

 man ; indeed, they seem far too ponderous and sluggish 

 in their movements to indulge in such violent exercise 

 as fighting. Placid, timorous, and slothful are their 

 lives, and even while being done to death by whale- 

 hunters they seem incapable of retaliation or even 

 escape, unless indeed some friendly floe is near, some 

 ice-field beneath which they may dive, and haply 

 through carelessness on the part of their aggressors, 

 drag the latter after them to a swift but horrible end 

 beneath that frozen covering. This sluggishness or 

 helplessness is partly due to their shape and immense 

 hampering of fat, in many cases two feet in thickness 

 over the greater part of their bodies. But it may be 

 more reasonably referred to their food costing them 

 no effort to obtain it, and so abundant that they are 

 never found, except in extreme old age or sickness, 

 suffering from any lack of fatness. 



A typical instance of this may be found in the ease 

 with which the fierce Orca gladiator, or killer whale, 

 attacks and overcomes them. He is rarely one- 

 hundredth of their vast bulk, but he has enterprise, 

 and teeth in both jaws. So he, with half-a-dozen 

 companions, will fall upon a huge Mysticetus, and in 

 a few minutes reduce him to a helpless island of flesh 

 with drooping lower jaw. Through that vast opening 

 of his mouth the pirates enter fearlessly and devour 

 the succulent tongue, disturbing for the first time a 



