426 Notes 071 Sport and Travel v 



attempt to swallow the fifteenth. Whew ! thirteen 

 porpoises (which usually run considerably larger than 

 the latest whitebait) and fourteen seals in the stomach 

 of a not particularly bulky cetacean some thirty feet 

 long at the uttermost ! 'Tis much ! I would our 

 author had told us the weight and dimensions of 

 these porpoises and seals (animals always found 

 herding together of course, and easily caught by a 

 lumbering whale), and then we might have tried a 

 species of sum. 



There have been legends floating about concern- 

 ing these orccB from the earliest times, and from the 

 foggy north to the sunny Mediterranean ; but I know 

 few more picturesque than that contained in the 

 Naturale Historie of C. Plinius Secundus as done 

 into racy old English by Philemon Holland, Doctor 

 of Physicke, in the year 1634 : — 



'These monstrous whales, named Balaense other 

 whiles, come into our seas also. They say that on 

 the coast of the Spanish ocean, by Gades, they are 

 not seen much before mid-winter, when the daies be 

 shortest, for at their set times they lie close on a 

 certain calm, deepe, and large creeke, which they 

 choose to cast their spawn in, and there delight above 

 all places to breed. The Orcae, other monstrous 

 fishes, know this fule well, and deadly enemies they 

 be to the fore-said whales. And verily if I could 

 pourtrait them, I can resemble them to nothing else 

 but a mightie masse and lumpc of flesh, without all 

 fashion, armed with most terrible sharpe and cutting 



