V 'Among the Sharks and Whales' 437 



species of the large whales, who, so far as we know, 

 have no interests antagonistic to theirs while alive, 

 and who when dead would be utterly useless to one, 

 if not two of them. As for the sword-fish, a snipe 

 might as well try to get a bite out of a cricket-ball, 

 as he out of a tubby sleek-skinned whale ; and I very 

 much doubt whether the grampus would make a 

 better business of it. One has seen sharks gorging 

 themselves on the flesh of a whale while it is being 

 ' flensed ' (not turning on their backs, as some vainly 

 suppose, but upright as a pig at a trough), biting off 

 large gobbets of the rugged mass as big as one's 

 head ; but I will believe that a fox-shark could get 

 his teeth sufficiently through the hide of a whale, live 

 or dead, to take a mouthful out of him, when I see a 

 cat bite a bit out of a brick wall, and not before. 



Off the eastern shores of North America I have 

 seen masses of smaller whales, porpoises, grampuses, 

 and sword-fish, all kicking and plunging about in 

 the wildest and most exciting manner, driving the 

 mackerel, or whatever fish they were after, down 

 each other's throats ; but were I to say that I ever 

 saw the slightest ill-feeling among them I should be 

 polemical in the highest degree. I remember being 

 told on one of these occasions by a fellow-observer 

 (I think an American), that when the fishermen 

 thought themselves in any danger from the sword- 

 fish they threw overboard a small keg, into which 

 he was kind enough to stick his snout, ' button his 

 foil ' in fact, and so deprive himself of the power of 



