FEROCITY OF THE KILLER "WHALE" 151 



whale and her calf, in a lagoon on the coast of California, in 

 the spring of 1858. The whale was of the California gray 

 species, and her young was grown to three times the bulk of 

 the largest Killers engaged in the contest, which lasted an 

 hour or more. They made alternate assaults upon the old 

 whale and her offspring, finally killing the latter, which sank 

 to the bottom where the water was five fathoms deep. Dur- 

 ing the struggle the mother became nearly exhausted, having 

 received several deep wounds about the mouth and lips. As 

 soon as their prize had settled to the bottom, the three Killers 

 descended, bringing up large pieces of flesh in their mouths, 

 which they devoured after coming to the surface. While 

 gorging themselves in this wise, the old whale made her 

 escape, leaving a track of gory water behind." 



The swiftness of the Killer is very great, and to all small 

 cetaceans this savage monster is a genuine terror. An 

 eminent naturalist named D. F. Eschricht, who devoted 

 much attention to the cetaceans, states that he knew one of 

 these animals to capture and swallow alive, and in quick 

 succession, four small porpoises, while from the stomach of 

 another Killer, only sixteen feet long, were taken fourteen 

 seals! In Bering Sea the Killer destroys large numbers of 

 fur seals, and, when walruses were plentiful, even made war 

 on them also. On the Atlantic coast it was, until recently, a 

 common occurrence for a band of Killers to chase large schools 

 of blackfish and porpoises into shallow water. They also 

 persecuted the horse-mackerel, or tunny. The Killer is 

 widely distributed, and his deeds of destruction have made 

 him widely known and feared. 



