308 Recreations of a Sportsman 



are killers because they kill everything without 

 regard to size. The zoologist knows them as 

 orcas; two well-known forms being found in the 

 North Pacific, Orca rectapinna (straight-fin) and 

 Orca ater, while in the North Atlantic they 

 are represented by a kinsman, the gladiator, or 

 Orca gladiator, well-named, a fearless monster 

 before whose wild charges the largest fishes and 

 whales flee in terror. The whalebone whales, 

 the largest living animals, are the favorite prey 

 of this tiger of the sea and run from it, display- 

 ing the utmost fear. 



About the channel islands I have seen a small 

 school of these animals (Orca ater) for several 

 years, and while it is impossible to distinguish 

 them I have reason to think that the same school 

 has lived here a long time; one is an old male 

 of the largest size, possibly over twenty feet. I 

 have seen him, or one just like him, a number 

 of times. Another is evidently a female, and 

 a third a possible young, or another female. 



I have seen them, or a similar trio, off Ship 

 Rock, Santa Catalina ; again off Avalon, or well 

 out to sea in the " doldrums " toward the main- 

 land, and on the trip I refer to, when Governor 

 Pardee, Stewart Edward White, Senator Flint, 

 and myself w r ere Mr. Pinchot's guests for a fish- 

 ing expedition at San Clemente, who should ap- 

 pear one day, about two miles off the east end 

 of the island, but my old friends, the killers. 





