Goats are also a numerous race in Antigua, almost every negro possessing one or more of these sure-footed creatures: their milk, as well as that of the sheep, is generally used for domestic purposes. Cats and dogs also degenerate greatly in size, and present as attenuated an appearance as if they had been keeping strict fasts and vigils for a month; the young puppies are sold for two shillings currency, and the cats are sometimes bartered between the negroes for a chicken: this last-named animal often forms an article of food to negro watchmen, who rear them especially for that purpose. The lordly whale at times frequents the West Indian seas. These huge marine animals generally quit their hyperborean homes in the summer months, to take a trip along the eastern shores of North America, and passing through the West Indian Archipelago, return to their icy regions, where they enjoy, with redoubled pleasure, their unwieldy gambols amid the stupendous icebergs. In their passage between the several islands they often meet with various trials; at times they quit their right course, and flounder about in shallow water, until at length they are perhaps cast ashore, where they suffer an untimely and lingering death. One met this fate at Antigua a few years ago. It was driven upon an unfrequented part of the coast, where it must have remained for a long time, until at length the effluvia became so offensive that it attracted the attention of some negroes, who, going in search of the cause which so tainted the air, discovered the defunct whale. It was a very large one, measuring from sixty to seventy feet in length, and of about thirty feet in circumference; many of its bones were preserved by the curious as commemorative of the event. But the greatest enemy the whale meets with in the tropic seas is the thrasher, (a species of squalus;) a fish so called from the manner in which it attacks its prey. As soon as the thrasher perceives the whale, he swims rapidly up to it, in a kind of orbit, until at length, when it approaches near enough, it compresses its tail, and by a great effort, throws itself out of the water and falls heavily upon the body of its unoffending victim. This exploit the thrasher performs again and again, until at length the whale (which very seldom escapes by speed) spouts up volumes of blood and water, and with one dreadful convulsion sighs out its last breath, and its immense carcase floats upon the ocean until some playful wave flings it upon the shore of some neighbouring island. In one of my trips from Antigua to Barbados I witnessed one of these conflicts, and although at a considerable distance from the place of battle, the blows sounded audibly in our ears.[61]