The Arizona sentinel., 1892-12-17
THE KILLER WHALE.
A Blood-Thirsty Monster of the
 North Sea.
Submarine Butchers Who Devour Num- bers of Their 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 a creature
 which, in proportion to its size, is cer-
 tainly the most voracious of all marine
 beasts of prey. It is the orca or killer
 whale, (orca gladiator), a close relation
 of the delphinid@, but as superior in
 strength to the southern porpoise as a
 waIruS is to a seal. The orca reaches a
 length of twenty-five feet and its jaws
 arc 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 a sea lion
 with few quick snaps.
 Its digestive power, says the Chicago
 Herald, is proportiOned to the tremen-
 dous efficacy of its jaws. Prof. Eschricht
 
 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 choled in
 the attempt to swallow a fifteenth
 since it's gullet proved to be obstructed by an intertwisted mass of seal bones. Capt. Wicls describes the battle be- l tween Baleen whale and swarm of
 orcas that jerBed the big monster about ! as a pack of dogs would worry a fat sow. They flew at its Hanks, snapped big pieces out of its lips, and finally hauled it under, while a surge of blood stained foam bespoke the consummation of the submarine butchery.
 ''These demons will pursue their largest relatives and pursue them like raging hounds" says Dr. James Nitric, who founds his study of the whale fam fly on years of personal observation. ''In 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, mistaBing 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 good deal of con- trovcrsy about its murderous propensi- ties has been caused by the fact that some writers have confounded it with its small relative, known as Rino's grampus (phOcena grisea), compara- 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 allel, and is found in shoals only near Spitzbergen and the east coast of l Greenland.
 Compared with that marine werewolf | even the shark is a 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 gambols. Near Sin | gapore boats manned with lancers and | kettledrums cruise about the docks be- 1 fore bathers venture to enter the water, and in the harbor of Havana man was nipped up a 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 mestizo, employed in a down. town livery stable, came to the beach with a 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 chance to cool off A number of promenaders on the beach were watching the horses, when sud- denly, to their horror, they saw big shark rise out of the water, seize the rid CTS leg and draw him down before he had time to utter more than a single Shriek. 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 though the witnesses in- 5tantly 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 -oises 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 5heir fOrelegs as if trying to ward off ln unseen foe. Decapitated sharks, on he other hand, will continue to use all heir tail muscles with destructive .orce, and in the water have been known to swim about as if nothing un- lsual had happened, until their vitality became exhausted by loss of blood Sir Emerson Tenant describes a 'ather lnhuman experiment. of that sort in the ofing of Trincomale, Cey- lon, where a crew of enraged sailors asned white shark to the gunwales, amputated its head and flung it over- board.
 me water was perfectly clear and not very deep, and the headless swim mer was seen to swim slowly about for nearly two hours, when it's move nents gradually became inpcrcentib1e and it settled on the graveIlv bottom its tail limp or stirred only by the roll. ing of the breakers.
 A large shark can snap off the leo of l horse as easily as carrot, its biting apparatus being entirely different from hat of wolf or a crocodile. The white shark of the Indian ocean, for instance, las six rows of teeth in the upper jaw md five in the lower, each tooth about 5wo inches wide at the base and jaggsd dong the edges like a triangular saw. Besides being as flexible as the best steel, these teeth are always sharp, for he same reason that a cats claws are .harner than thnSa of 2 docr