117 
THE SAVAGE WORLD. 
indentions and discoveries which almost from day to day change our methods 
of living, and prevented an inconvenience which, before the time of gas, coal 
oil, and the electric light, would have been extreme. 
The whale has to fear not only man, but the grampus. Commodore Wilkes 
gives a thrilling account of a fight between a whale and a grampus, in which 
unequal contest the whale could oppose nothing but his strength in resistance 
to the grampus, which clung with the tenacity of a bull-dog to his mouth, and 
gradually caused him to bleed to death. As the grampus is said to eat nothing 
but the whale’s tongue, his gormandizing rivals the fabled dishes of Roman 
gourmands. 
Another enemy of the whale is said to be the thresher-shark, which, like 
the grampus, seizes the monster, and not only bites ferociously, but thrashes 
the poor creature with its long tail, and thus literally rides the whale to death. 
The sword-fish is also said to persecute the great leviathan, as does the 
narwhal, by darting upward and striking its murderous weapon into the whale’s 
belly, and continuing its unprovoked, but no less furious attack, until the 
great, but helpless, creature expires. 
