588 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[APRIL 14, 1906. 

eating 1,425 pounds at one meal. I have heard 
of a pig which ate a bucketful and when picked 
up and put inside the bucket did not half fill it; 
but that is nothing to these weasels. 
Wishing to be fair in the matter, I asked Mr. 
William White, of Brewer, his judgment. He 
raises chickens for the market and kills them 
himself; has killed some 150 this season. His 
reply was: “Well, a chicken does not have a 
great deal of blood; I should set it at about a 
gill. I don’t know what it would weigh, but it 
would measure about a gill.” Now nineteen gills 
is four and three-fourths pints. As our weasel 
skins, after the body is removed, will not hold 
over half a pint, I judge they must have an en- 
tirely different breed of animals in Pennsylvania 
or else those statements are not correct. If such 
reckless statements as are given as proof by Mr. 
Kalbfus help his case any, I fail to see it. 
Brewer, Maine. MaAnty Harpy. 
The Swimming Hare. 
Two species of water-loving hares are found 
in the southern United States, Lepus palustris 
and L. aquaticus. The former is about the size 
of the common gray rabbit (Lepus sylvaticus) ; 
the latter, which appears to be somewhat more 
western in its distribution, about as large as the 
varying hare, L. americanus. The first named, 
the marsh hare, has been observed on the At- 
lantic coast as far north as South Carolina, but 
will very likely be found to range northward as 
far as southeastern Virginia. It seems to occur 
along the whole southern coast, at least as far 
as Vera Cruz, Mexico, and the opinion is ex- 
pressed that it may exist along the Mexican 
coast from Texas to Yucatan. It has also been 
found inland, in swamps and along streams as 
far north as southern Illinois. The habitat of 
L. aquaticus' is from Alabama west, through 
Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas. It 
has also been taken in southeastern Mexico and 
Yucatan. The range of this species also extends 
inland, and it is abundant in southern Illinois, 
near Mount Carmel and Cairo. 
The marsh hare is slightly smaller tHan the 
gray rabbit; it has shorter ears; its eyes are one- 
third smaller than those of L. sylvaticus. The 
body is proportionately heavier, and the legs 
shorter than in that species. The feet are 
sparsely clothed with hair. These are the most 
obvious physical differences between the two spe- 
cies. The home of the marsh hare is in swamps 
and low wet grcund along the coast, or on the 
borders of streams. It is abundant near the rice 
swamps of Georgia and in the low, muddy mea- 
dows of islands along the coast. It is rarely or 
never found on the high, dry land far from water. 
It is extremely slow of foot, and can be over- 
taken, it is said, by any dog; but the situations 
in which it is found are not often invaded by men 
or dogs, and it is seldom disturbed. It is a capi- 
tal:swimmer, and when alarmed readily takes to 
the water for safety. Very often when pursued 
it plunges into the water, and after swimming a 
short distance lies hidden among the floating 
vegetation of a pond or sluggish stream, with 
only its nose and eyes above water. It often en- 
ters the water not only for safety, but for amuse- 
ment as well, and sometimes in localities where 
it is abundant a number of these animals may be 
seen swimming and playing in the water. So 
rapid are their movements in their element that 
it is stated that some escaped from a Newfound- 
land dog which was pursuing them. 
The marsh hare is readily tamed, and after a 
short captivity becomes very gentle. One owned 
by Mr. Bachman freely took food from the hand 
a few days after it had been caught. It was 
fond of lying for hours in a trough of water, and 
seemed uneasy and restless when this was re- 
moved from his cage. When the trough was. te- 
placed it plunged into it, lying as deep as possible 
in the water, 
The nest of the marsh hare is rather large for 
the animal and is usually constructed of rushes, 
and is often more or less hidden by bending 
rushes or other surrounding vegetation over it. 
The mother enters by a hole in the side. The 
young are said to number from five to seven. 
The larger water hare (L. aquaticus) in many of 
its habits resembles the marsh hare, and so dif- 
fers from the northern hare, with which in its 
physical character it would naturally be com- 
pared. It is a good swimmer and very much at 
home in the water, and its feet, as in the marsh 
hare, are but thinly clothed with fur. It is no- 
ticed that the tracks of both these water hares 
made in soft:earth leave distinct impressions of 
the individual toes and nails. The swamp hare 
runs with great swiftness, and when pursued 
usually takes a course toward water, and throws 
off its pursuers by swimming. 
The Killer. 
(Orca gigantea.) 
My attention has recently been drawn to a re- 
markable occurrence happening in the Pacific 
Ocean near the Santa Cruz Islands, off the Cali- 
fornia coast—an encounter between killers and 
swordfish, a school of each meeting in deadly 
warfare, from which over twenty of the killers 
were left dead in evidence. Also floating near 
the deal bodies of the killers was a common gray- 
back whale of fifty feet in length, whose misfor- 
tune it had been to be in the vicinity of the war- 
‘fare, and which may possibly have been the first 
cause of the conflict between the two schools of 
combatting gladiators. 
The killers, as well known to seafaring men, 
particularly of the Pacific waters, are huge mam- 
mals akin to the whale, grampus, blackfish, 
porpoise, walrus, etc., warm-blooded animals 
adapted to life in the water. The average length 
of the full-grown killer is from twenty-five to 
thirty feet, and its weight from 5,000 to 7,000 
pounds, although exceptional instances have been 
noted of greater length and weight, as mention is 
made in the Encyclopedia Britannica of one cap- 
tured of thirty-seven feet in length and whose 
stomach contained seals, besides other food. 
They are black, smooth and lustrous in color 
and can move with great activity, propelled by a 
large tail set transversely to the body, as in the 
whale. The killer has a very large mouth and 
strong jaws set with crocodile-like teeth an inch 
and a half or so in diameter and from two to 
three inches in length, of which there is a double 
row on the lower jaw. 
The ferocity and ravenous qualities of the blue 
shark are mild in comparison to those of the 
killer. Its desperate courage is unequalled by 
any denizen of the sea, and it has no hesitancy 
in attacking the mighty sea lion or walrus when 
caught away from the land, which it will rend 
apart and largely devour. A pack of half a dozen 
killers will have no hesitancy in attacking any 
of the gigantic whales, excepting the sperm, 
which they will almost inevitably run to destruc- 
tion. There are many well authenticated in- 
stances of this. The sperm whale with its capa- 
cious jaws and tusks and fighting qualities, will 
turn and give battle, but the others are timid 
and depend for their safety upon flight. These 
while upon the surface the killers will attack and 
tear from the lips and belly, slabs of flesh fifty 
or a hundred pounds in weight, and have been 
observed to draw back and come on with rapid 
speed, and strike resounding blows head on. The 
frightened whale in sounding is followed to its 
depth of perhaps half a mile, and when coming 
to the surface is observed to have the killers 
clinging to it. In its hard pressing the tongue 
of the whale will loll out like that of a dog when 
tired. This will be bitten off as an attractive 
morsel, and as the exhausted whale circles upon 
the surface in its distress, the killers satisfy their 
ravenous appetites, and when satisfied quit their 
prey, leaving the whale to await the inevitable 
death which follows. 
Several instances have occurred off the Cali- 
fornia Bay of Monterey, where the bodies of such 
dead or dying whales have been harvested by the 
local land whalers of that station. Michael Noon, 
a reliable keeper of the Monterey Wharf, in- 
formed me that in the case of two whaling boats 
he accompanied while they were cutting up a 
whale so done up by the killers some miles out 
at sea from the station, the large raft of the 
blubber that they were towing, was attacked by 
a pack of killers, which got away with their en- 
tire load, despite their firing at and lancing a 
number of them. 
I saw at Monterey the remains of a large killer 
which was found dead in the harbor by some fish- 
ermen and tried out for oil, which had _ been 
choked to death by an unusually large seal it had 
attempted to swallow, and which had in its 
stomach the fresh remains of three other seals. 
These killers, though occupying chiefly the 
northern regions, are given to frequenting the 
waters of the California coast as far south, and 
at times further south than the Santa Cruz and 
Catalina Islands. Despite their ferocity there 
have not been known any instances that-I have 
heard of when they have attacked bather$ or sail- 
ors who have fallen from whaling ships or boats | 
when the killers were about, excepting in the case 
of a native of Behring Bay, killed by ‘ne that 
had been harpooned and brought to bay. The ° 
killer had been harpooned from one of three 
boats of natives, and made a great fight, com- 
pletely demolishing one boat with its tail, but 
without disturbing the men, who had been thrown 
into the water, who were picked up by the other 
boats, but in its last fight, coming up from below, 
it crushed with its jaws one of the remaining 
boats, and in this instance crushing out the life 
of one of the occupants. 
One day while trolling with fresh bait for sal- 
mon below Monterey at Camilo Bay, where I had 
notable success, I was. witness of an immense 
pack of killers which came around Point Lobos 
and invaded the quiet waters of the bay where I 
was trolling. It was a curious sight as they came 
in around the Point, scattered over an area of a 
few acres in extent, on the surface of the water. 
They had more the appearance of an irregular 
company of infantry with bayonets fixed to their 
pieces, showing from their long attenuated dorsal 
fins of five or six feet protruding above the water, 
as usual with them when swimming on the sur- 
face. They came on toward me, being at first 
perhaps a mile off, and my boat a similar dis- 
tance from shore. Their black bodies occasion- 
ally emerged above the water, and sometimes 
were quite out. I will own that I felt some ap- 
prehension as I saw this ferocious gang of pirates 
approaching directly toward our boat, which it 
had observed, but my two men, both old whalers, 
made light of it, telling me no-harm would come, 
although I am sure they felt. some nervousness, 
conscious that: one tail blow of a single eer 
could demolish our craft in a twinkling. No 
other boat was visibe in our quiet bay, which was 
as beautiful as deserted, being out of the line of 
fishermen, with one or two small native habi- 
tations on the shore, and the deserted old Camilo 
Church, built two centuries ago by the Jesuit 
Fathers, backed by the barren mountains of the 
coast range. As the killers reached us, they di- 
vided, passing on either side of our boat, many 
of them so near we could see their large black 
eyes with white spots and splashes below. They 
passed on, and we made our way to our place of 
landing. A short distance beyond our boat the 
killers disappeared below the surface. The sal- 
mon, which had been plentiful, were no more in 
evidence. .They entirely. disappeared, probably 
going out into deep water, and did not appear. 
again in Camilo Bay for several days. 
When the killers came in we saw a_ hasty 
clambering up of a score or more of sea lions 
upon rocks, at the south shore. Not long after 
they disappeared, and as we were pulling toward 
shore one of my men drew attention to a commo- 
tion upon the surface of the sea some two miles 
farther out, which proceeded from a large school 
of tuna feeding at the surface upon small fish, 
quite apparent to his experienced eye. We paused 
to witness this, which the boatmen considered 
had attracted the attention of the killers. The 
commeotion of the tunas soon ended abruptly, and 
the boatmen were well satisfied that the killers 
had reached them, and that havoc was going on 
below the water in that locality. 
I had thought in my reflections about the kill- 
ers that they were immune from all sea denizens, 
but the late occurrence off the Santa Cruz Isl- 
ands indicates that a deadly foe, if not the sword- 
fish, exists in the sea, capable of destroying them. 
A fisherman witness has related at Santa Bar- 
bara that he saw the conflict, which he first sup- 
posed arose from killers at play, and approached 
within a quarter mile of the fray, seeing a great 
commotion with killers leaping out of the water, 
