NORTHERN SPECIES OF ORCA. 159 



a place, as in the specimen examined by Professor Nilsson.^ It was immediately opened. I am 

 sorry to say that I forgot to measure it before; but as far as I can judge, estimating it by 

 the eye, it had a length of about six feet and a breadth of four and a half feet ; and prepared as I 

 was to find something extraordinary in it, yet it was a most surprising sight to discover imme- 

 diately five or six seals, some large, others small, all flayed, and, besides, entwined with one 

 another to that degree, that it was necessary to pull them out one by one, in order to count them 

 accurately. But during this process the general surprise was continually more and more 

 increased — for rather a large number of eye-witnesses were present — as it for some time seemed 

 as if the pulling out of every single body would disclose several new ones more deeply concealed ; 

 a couple of them seemed to be fresh flayed, most of them half digested, or already fallen to 

 pieces, some only remaining in the shape of loose parts of the skeleton. The interest of the 

 labourers who assisted us seemed to be particularly awakened by an extraordinary number of disk- 

 like bodies, resembling coins, but proving soon to be the epiphyses of the vertebral bodies of young 

 common porpoises ; for gradually porpoises were also disclosed, though but one almost entire, 

 most of them half decomposed, and only to be recognised by the fragments of the skeletons. 

 Thus it became necessary, in order to ascertain the number of the animals swallowed, to arrange 

 them in rows ; but as far as the porpoises were concerned I satisfied myself by only collecting the 

 heads. The result was, that in this stomach were found, in a more or less digested state, thirteen 

 common porpoises and thirteen seals, to which, however, a fourteenth, a very small one, must be 

 added, which, in its entire state, though much decomposed by digestion, had shpped into the 

 second stomach, perhaps not till after death. If to this we were still to add the seal-skin which, 

 as we have stated already, we found sticking between the teeth of the animal, then the number of 

 the seals swallowed would be fifteen. But, everything being well considered, it is clear that this 

 empty skin in the mouth of the animal must have belonged to one of the flayed bodies found in 

 the stomach, and, therefore, ought not to be counted separately ; for though a crushed cranium 

 was still found in this skin, yet I dare not deny but that this head may have been wanting in one 

 of the seals found half digested in the stomach, for these were not counted by the craniums like 

 the porpoises. In the killer examined by Professor Nilsson the four seals were still found pro- 

 vided with the hairy skins ; but all " had been cut across in the same manner transversely from the 

 back of the head to the lowest part of the chest," whence my distinguished friend makes the conclu- 

 sion " that the seals were seized, not from behind, but from the side, having tried to move in curves 

 {Krumbugter) in order to escape."^ The bodies of all the seals were skinned in my specimen, as I 

 have stated already ; and in order to judge of the manner in which they were seized I have only the 

 skin sticking in the gape to guide me. This had also been cut across in the middle ; but I confess 

 that I believed I could explain the cut, as having been made by the animals having been caught 

 by the teeth of the killer just across the middle of the body, therefore from behind. The fact that 

 John Hunter found a single, cut-off porpoise-tail in the stomach of the individual examined by 

 him^ seems to prove, at all events, that the porpoises, at least, are caught from behind. But it 

 seems to me more important to point out that it is proved by the flayed condition of the seal- 

 bodies found in the stomach of the killer, that these animals, after having been swallowed, are 



^ ' Forhandlingar vid de Skandinaviske Naturforskarnes sjette Mote,' Stockholm, 1855, p. 55. 



^ L. c, p. 58. 



^ ' Philosophical Transactions,' vol. Ixxvii (for the year 1787), p. 411. 



