NORTHERN SPECIES OF ORCA. 167 



tioris. In a note he says, that the strongest proof that a cannibal disposition exists at all in this 

 order of Cetaceans, rests upon the fact, that the tail of a common porpoise was found by John 

 Hunter in the stomach of a killer examined by him, but he adds, that this circumstance when 

 properly considered will appear to be more mysterious than decisive. Now this respected author 

 would hardly have thought it proper to express such strong doubts, if he had known the 

 description of the seal-hunting of the killers by Otto Fabricius, an author perfectly trustworthy in 

 his statement of facts : how the seals take flight, as soon as they observe a shoal of Ardluk, and 

 when overtaken by them have recourse to the shore, sometimes to the ice ; but how that then 

 they are disappointed, the Ardluks waiting below to attack them again when they descend, as 

 they are sometimes forced to do, the killers with united force upsetting the floes, even 

 though of considerable size. Only one thing could still be doubted after such a 

 description, how far the killers were able to swallow the large seals whole, and this doubt 

 was completely removed by Professor Nilsson's observation. By the account given 

 above, it has also been proved that they do not spare mammalia of their own, more than 

 those of other orders. It is true, that the three specimens, in whose stomachs warm-blooded 

 animals have hitherto been found, namely. Hunter's, Nilsson's, and Benzon's, were all males 

 with high dcrsal fins, and that the only low-finned killer, as far as I know, the contents of whose 

 stomach has hitherto been examined, viz., Mulder's specimen, was only found to have swallowed 

 a great thornback ; but even if the low-finned ones should really form a species by themselves 

 (a question we shall presently have to consider more minutely), yet their fierceness can hardly 

 be thought to be much inferior than that of the high-finned ones, as Fabricius's description of the 

 seal-hunting of the killers is found in his description of the Ardluk, and not in that of the 

 Ardlurksoak. 



It now only remains to ascertain, whether the killers also really attack and tear great 

 Cetaceans, to satisfy their hunger on their blubber and flesh. On this point, doubts have 

 been still more prevalent in this century. And yet the evidence of eye-witnesses has 

 not been wanting in modern literature to prove that the killers make such attacks. Thus, 

 especially the celebrated traveller Tilesius, has given the following description of the killers in 

 the sea near Kamtschatka : " They swim," says he,^ " in ranks five abreast, the heads and tails 

 turned dow nwards, elevating all at the same time their backs with the sabre-formed fins above 

 the water. When they have woimded a whale, they never lose sight of it during the 

 pursuit, but foUow it everywhere attacking it from all sides like buU dogs, and harassing it 

 until it dies, or runs ashore." . This statement will be found to agree perfectly well with two 

 accounts sent to me in 1840, from Greenland, one from Mr. Motzfeldt, a merchant of 

 Julianehaal', who died soon after, and another from my particular friend, Captain Holboll,^ now 

 also deceased. The former gives the following account : " The killer attacks also the Greenland 

 whale. Such an instance was observed at Holsteinsborg, from the boats engaged in whale- 

 fishing. A shoal of killers pursuing a large Greenland whale northwards passed close by the 

 boats. Some of them had caught hold of its tail and fins with their teeth, while others jumped 

 over it at the blow holes, seeking to hinder it from breathing, and others again thumped it on the 

 sides. The boats followed to see how the contest would end. The whale directed its course 



1 ' Isis,' 1835, pp. 725-26. 



^ See Eschricht ' Untersuchuugen iiber die nordischen Wallthiere/ Leipzig, 1849, pp. 194 and 198 



