550 MR. R. BROWN ON THE CETACEANS [NoV. 12, 



Sptickhuggare, Svdrdjisk (Swedes) ; Stourvagn, Staurhynirty 

 (Norse); Ardluik or Ardluk $, Ardlurksoak ^ ((Jreenlanders). 

 In all probability the "Pej-nak," or Parnak {Physeter cntodon, O. 

 Fab.), is also to be referred to Orca gladiator. Hr. Fleischer as- 

 sured me that it was an Orca, but only known to him by name. 

 Curiously enough, the Kamschatdales and Aleutians have very similar 

 names {Agluck, fide Pallas, Zool. Rosso-Asiat. p. 305 ; and Aguluck, 

 fide Chamisso, Nov. Act. Acad. Nat. Cur. vol. xii. p. 262) for ani- 

 mals closely allied to, if not identical with, this species. 



The Ardluk is only seen in the summer time along the whole 

 coast of Greenland. Wherever the White Whale, the Right Whale, 

 or the Seals are found, there is also their ruthless enemy the Killer. 

 The White Whale and Seals often run ashore in terror of this Ceta- 

 cean ; and I have seen Seals spring out of the water when pursued 

 by it. The whalers hate to see it, for its arrival is the signal for 

 every Whale to leave that portion of the sea. It is said that it will 

 not go among ice, and that the Right Whale, when attacked by it, 

 keeps among ice to escape its persecution. Occasionally the ends of 

 the laminse of whalebone are found bitten off, apparently by the 

 Killer ; and probably this is the origin of the story that it preys on 

 the tongue of the Whale. Linne* very happily styles it — " Balse- 

 narum phocarumque tyrannusf quas turmatim aggreditur." Though 

 subsisting chiefly on large fishes, they will not hesitate to attack the 

 largest Whalebone Whales, and are able to swallow whole large 

 Porpoises and Seals. Dr. Eschricht took out of the stomach of one 

 thirteen Porpoises and fourteen Seals, the voracious aiiimal having 

 been choked by the skin of a fifteenth. It has been known to 

 swallow four Seals at least immediately one after the other, and in 

 the course of a few days as many as twenty-seven individuals^. I 

 know of a case in which they attacked a white-painted herring-boat 

 in the western islands, probably mistaking it for a Beluga ! 



11. PhoCjEna communis, Brookes. 



Popular names. — Piirpess, S'ea-^^^ (English seamen) ; Marsuin^, 

 Herring-hogs, Pellock, Bucker, Puffy -dunter, Neesock^ (fishermen 

 of Northern Islands and coasts of Scotland) ; Nisa and, more rarely, 

 Piglertok (Greenlanders). 



The Porpoise arrives in the spring in Davis Strait, and stops 

 there until November, but does not go further north than from lat. 67° 

 to lat. 69° N. They are now and then caught off the coast during 



* Mant. Plant, vol. ii. p. 523. 



t Gunnerus (Throndh. Selsk. Skriv. iv. p. 99) styles it Kobbeherre — Lord of 

 the Seals. 



X Nilsson, Skand. Fauna. (Diiggdjuren), p. 607. 



§ The old Norsemen as they poured forth from Scandinavia on their predatory 

 or colonizing expeditions leavened not only the habits but the language of the 

 conquered. Marsvin is the Swedish word for the Porpoise, hence the French 

 Marsouin and the same Shetland word. Nise is the Norse term for it ; hence we 

 have Nisa in Greenland and Neesock in Shetland (the ock being used there, as in 

 many other words, as a diminutive). Porpoise is only a corruption of the French 

 pore poisson, which we have almost literally translated into Sea-pig, 



