Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1892-06-29
THE KILLER WHALE.
A Blood-Thirsty Monster Of the
North Sea.
Submarine Butchers Tho Devour Num-
bers of 1neir Own Families and
Regard Man as a Tooth
some Morsel.

The shark Of the lower ATTITUDES is
still often honored with such names as
the ''sea tiger or the terror of the
ocean" The Spitzbergen fishermen
would find a more appropriate use for
the latter epithet. Seals, porpoises and
even white whales have been known to
spring out of the water and run ashore
to avoid the attacks of creature
which, in proportion to its size, Is GER
tainly the most voracious of all marine
beasts of prey. 1t is the orca or killer
whale, (orca gladiator), close relation
of the delphinide, but as superior in
strength to the southern porpoise as a
walrus is to seal The orca reaches a
length of twenty-five feet, and it's Jaws
are bristling with teeth from four to
six inches long and as a sharp as dirk
knife. Single specimens have been seen
of thirty Capt. Ross says thirty-fve)
feet, and fully able to devour sea lion
with a few quick snaps.
Its digestive power, says the Chicago
Herald, is proportional to the tremen-
dous efficacy of its jaws Prof Eschricht
examined specimen that had been
killed in shallow water, and found in
its stomach thirteen porpoises and four
teen seals, and the ''atrocious glutton, -
he adds, seemed to have got choked in
the attempt to swallow a fifteenth"
since its gullet proved to be INSTRUCTED
by an intertwisted mass of seal bones.
Capt. Wicks describes the battle be-
tween Baleen whale and a swarm of
orcas that jerked the big monster about
as a pack of dogs would worry fat
SOW. They flew at it's tanks, snapped
big pieces out of its lips, and finally
hauled 1t under, while surge of blood
stained foam bespoke the contamination
of the submarine butchery.
These demons will pursue their
largest relatives and pursue them like
raging hounds" says DR.. James Murie,
who POUNDS his study of the whale fam
lily on years of personal observation.
I'm one instance they assaulted Cali
fornia gray whale and her young The
orcas killed the latter and sprang on
the mother, tearing away large pieces,
which they greedily devoured. Orcas
have been known to attack a white
painted herring boat, mistaking it for
beluga, and they will not hesitate to
lay hold of harpooned whales and drag
them perforce under water
The orca is also known as the Green
land grampus, and a good deal of con-
troversy about its murderous propensi-
ties has been caused by the fact that
some writer's have COMPOUNDED it with
its small relative, known as Rino's
grampus (phocena grisea), a compare
lively harmless creature, found along
the east shores of the Atlantic, from st.
Helena to Scotland, while the orca is
seldom seen south of the fortieth par
anel, and is found in shoals only near
Sp1tzbergen and the east coast Of
Greenland.
Compared with that marine werewolf
even the shark is rather sluggish
brute, though he is apt to offset his lack
of speed by cunning and patience. The
white shark of the tropics will hang
about wharves for days and haunt bath
ing places, rarely betraying his pres
ence by premature garnbols. Near Sim
gapore boats manned with lancers and
kettledrums cruise about the docks be-
fore bathers venture to enter the water,
and in the harbor of Havana a man was
nipped up year ago under circum-
stances which seem to prove that ordi-
nary precautions do not always avail
against the cunning of veteran man
eater"
A stout rnestizo, employed in down
town livery stable, came to the beach
with couple of horses, and after let
ting them splash about in the shallow
water for a minute or two rode in
deeper to give them a chance to cool off
A number of promenaders on the beach
were watching the horses, when sud-
denly, to their horror, they saw a big
shark rise out of the water, seize the rid
er's leg and draw him down before he
had time to utter more than a single
Shrek. The water near the scene of
the tragedy was not more than waist
deep, but the whole thing was done so
quickly that attempts at rescue were
unavailing, though the witnesses in
stantly rushed into the water, swinging
their sticks and yelling away with
might and main.
Like most sluggish creatures sharks
are extremely tenacious of life. Tor
toises of several species will live for
hours after being beheaded. but show
the effects Of the operation by sitting
almost perfectly still or slowly moving
their forelegs as if trying to ward off
an unseen foe. Decapitated sharks, on
the other hand, will continue to use all
their tail muscles with destructive
force, and in the water have been
known to swim about as if nothing un-
usual had happened, until their vitality
became exhausted by loss of blood
Sir Emerson Tenant describes
rather inhuman experiment of that
sort in the offing of Trincomale, Cey-
lon, where a crew of enraged sailors
lashed white shark to the gunwales,
amputated its head and flung it over
board
The water was perfectly clear and
not very deep, and the headless swim
mer was seen to swim slowly about
for nearly two hours. when its move
ments gradually became imperceptible
and it settled on the gravelly bottom,
its tail limp or stirred only by the roll
ing of the breakers
A large shark can snap off the leg of
a horse as easily as a carrot, its biting
apparatus being entirely different from
that of wolf or crocodile. The white
shark of the Indian ocean, for instance,
has six rows of teeth in the upper jaw
and five in the lower, each tooth about
two inches wide at the base and Jagged
along the edges like triangular saw.
Besides being as flexible as the best
steel, these teeth are always sharp, for
the same reason that cats claws are
sharper than those of dog.
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