A Tiger of the Sea 



" Why, the dam would have bitten the launch in 

 two; she could do it, sir. She was thirty feet long 

 and had teeth like spikes." 



The angler laughed. 



The boatmen around the channel islands of South- 

 ern California have a pronounced respect for the 

 " killer " the small, toothed whale that frequents 

 these waters the year round. The angler had been 

 trolling with a small sardine for the amber fish, and 

 a school of killers or orcas had quietly come up, the 

 infant of the school had seized the bait, been hooked 

 and sprang into the air, showing its entire length. 

 As the tall knife-like dorsal fins of the old whales 

 pierced the water everywhere, showing that they were 

 excited, the boatman stood not on the order of going, 

 but immediately put in toward shore. Not that he 

 was a coward, far from it; he knew the possible 

 danger when a young whale has been attacked and 

 the adult animal can find the cause. The adult gray 

 whale has been known to follow a boat so far inshore 

 that she beached herself in frantic endeavors to reach 

 the human despoiler and many a lonely grave in the 

 sands of Lower California might have as its epitaph, 

 " Killed by a revengeful whale." 



Few animals known to man possess the savage and 

 murderous nature of the small whale-like animals 

 known as killers or orcas. They pass under various 

 names as black fish, killer, orca, kill fish, sea tiger, 

 and deserve all the titles. The shark may be a man- 



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