AN ENEMY TO THE WHALE. 1 1 9 



fishes; whence Ovid, or some other Latin poet,* describes 

 him as being as unrelenting as the sword he carries 



' " Et durus Xiphias ictu non mitior ensi." 



We are told, indeed, that nothing alive or dead escapes 

 his fury; that he attacks, almost indiscriminately, the 

 larger fish and marine mammals, boats and bathers, and 

 even, when baffled in his assault, will spend his violence 

 on the very rocks. If he falls in with a shoal of tunny, 

 he rushes into their midst, like a wolf among a flock of 

 sheep, and plunges his "reeking weapon" in rapid suc- 

 cession in their bleeding flanks. Should any hapless 

 bather lie in his course, he dashes at him, and runs him 

 through the body as happened, indeed, some forty years 

 ago, to a man while swimming near the mouth of the 

 Severn. But against whales, in particular, his rage is so 

 excessive, that some authorities have supposed his wild 

 onslaughts against rocks and ships to originate in an error 

 of judgment; that they are intended to punish the ocean 

 leviathan, but have failed in their aim owing to the im- 

 perfection of vision from which the sword-fish, like other 

 scombers, suffers. 



The sword-fish is described as specially partial to whale's 

 tongue. At all events, he pursues the huge cetaceous 

 mammal without intermission. The latter, having only 

 its tail to defend its colossal bulk, attempts to crush its 

 assailant with a blow; but the nimble scomber generally 

 eludes it, darts aside, and swiftly returning, transfixes 

 the whale with its keen sword ; the " multitudinous 

 sea," by its " incarnadined waves," quickly reveals the 

 fatal issue of the fight. Captain Crow, cited by Mr. 



* We owe the quotation to Badham. 



