2 4 o CURIOUS CREATURES. 



solstice, and that at periodical seasons they retire and 

 conceal themselves in some calm capacious bay, in which 

 they take a delight in bringing forth. This fact, how- 

 ever, is known to the Orca, an animal which is particularly 

 hostile to the Balaena, and the form of which cannot be 

 in any way accurately described, but as an enormous 

 mass of flesh, armed with teeth. This animal attacks 

 the Balaena in its place of retirement, and with its teeth 

 tears its young, or else attacks the females which have 

 just brought forth, and, indeed, while they are still 

 pregnant ; and, as they rush upon them, it pierces them 

 just as though they had been attacked by the beak of 

 a Liburnian Galley. The female Balsenae, devoid of all 

 flexibility, without energy to defend themselves, and 

 overburdened by their own weight ; weakened, too, by 

 gestation, or else the pains of recent parturition, are 

 well aware that their only resource is to take flight in the 

 open sea, and to range over the whole face of the ocean ; 

 while the Orcae, on the other hand, do all in their power 

 to meet them in their flight, throw themselves in their 

 way, and kill them either cooped up in a narrow passage, 

 or else drive them on a shoal, or dash them to pieces 

 against the rocks. When these battles are witnessed, 

 it appears just as though the sea were infuriate against 

 itself ; not a breath of wind is there to be felt in the 

 bay, and yet the waves, by their pantings and their re- 

 peated blows, are heaved aloft in a way which no whirl- 

 wind could effect. 



" An Orca has been seen even in the port of Ostia, 

 where it was attacked by the Emperor Claudius. It was 

 while he was constructing the harbour there that this 

 orca came, attracted by some hides, which, having been 

 brought from Gaul, had happened to fall overboard there. 



