238 A YEAR WITH A WHALER 



perate battle was we did not see. The whale 

 and its savage assailants moved off out of eye- 

 shot. But for some time after we had lost sight 

 of the whale we could hear its labored and ster- 

 toreous breathing and its heavy splashes as it 

 attempted to breach. 



Killers, Mr. Landers told me, are themselves 

 a species of rapacious, carnivorous whale, whose 

 upper and lower jaws are armed with sharp, 

 saw-like teeth. They are otherwise known as the 

 Orca gladiator, and tiger-hearted gladiators of 

 the sea they are. The great, clumsy bowhead 

 with no teeth with which to defend itself, whose 

 only weapons are its flukes and its fins, is no 

 match for them. They attack the great creature 

 whenever they encounter it, and when it has 

 exhausted itself in its efforts to escape, they 

 tear open its jaws and feast upon its tongue. 

 The killer whale never hunts alone. It pursues 

 its titanic quarry in couples and trios, and some- 

 times in veritable wolf-like packs of half a dozen. 

 There is usually no hope for the bowhead that 

 these relentless creatures mark for their prey. 



