Look at it in what way we will, the creature that was bitten into such fragments as these, must have been of proportions so vast that the Bishop Pontoppidan himself can hardly have erred more in overstatement, than our grudging scientists have, in under-estimation. Seven feet for an arm or a tentacle! That was enough—we were to be satisfied with that. But no, neither we nor the cachalots are going to be satisfied with short commons. Though professors be virtuous there shall still be cakes and ale in the world. We shall have our monsters—our krakens and sea-serpents—let them bite their thumbs at them as they will. The Prince of Monte Carlo, too, not many years ago, found one for himself, and his naturalist called it _Lepidotenthis Grimaldii_. With a Latin name and a naturalist, there can surely be no more objection. CHAPTER XXI WHALES AND THEIR ENEMIES—THE THRESHER AND THE SWORD-FISH—SPORT AMONGST ANIMALS—THE SWORD-FISH AND ITS WAYS—CANNIBALISM IN NATURE—THE SHARK AND THE PILOT-FISH. The sword-fish and killer, whose acquaintance we made in the last chapter, are two of the principal enemies of the larger whales; especially of those that are provided with baleen, or whalebone, instead of teeth, since they are more defenceless than the toothed whales, as represented by the redoubtable cachalot. Another of these enemies is the well-known thresher-fish, a species of shark which grows to a length of some fifteen feet, more than half of which is taken up by the tail, or rather by the upper lobe of the caudal fin, which is extraordinarily developed. In proportion to the bulk of the shark, it is thin and flexible, but the integument which forms its outer covering is so tough, and its edges so sharp, that wielded, as it is, with enormous power, it can cut almost like a razor. Armed with this formidable weapon, the thresher, as soon as it sees a whale rise, swims towards it, and leaping several yards into the air, delivers, with it, as it comes down, a terrible blow across the giant’s back. So great is the force exerted that the silence of the ocean is suddenly broken by a report like that of a musket, whilst the waters are instantly stained with the blood of the whale. The latter, roused to fury with the pain, endeavours to retaliate by striking with its own tail, in the manner of the cachalot, but, though a single blow of it would be fatal, the agility of the shark is such, and his size, in proportion to his gigantic adversary, so small, that he avoids this contingency, and continues to leap and to ply his instrument of flagellation almost unceasingly.