No single thresher, indeed, could do more than discommode a whale, but these attacks are usually delivered by two or more in company, whilst often threshers and sword-fish pursue their game, together, in packs. In this case, whilst a constant volley of blows falls on the whale’s devoted back, the sword-fish dive beneath his belly and stab upwards with their much more formidable sword or lance. As against the thresher, the whale’s best resource is to dive, but this brings no relief from the attacks of the other, and on his rising to breathe again, the flagellation is renewed. It is no wonder that, weakened with loss of blood, and covered with deep stabs, some of which, perhaps, may be mortal, the whale has at last to succumb. Possibly from amongst the pack of his enemies, he may have succeeded in killing some, but this hardly helps him—the wounds and stabs continue, and his blood flows more and more. Such is the story which repeated observations, on the part of those best qualified for making them, have made familiar; nor is there anything which should cause us to doubt the truth of it, except the interesting nature and picturesque character of the facts narrated—a very broken reed for the sceptical naturalist to lean on. He, of course, denies it, and is not at all impressed by such accounts of eye-witnesses as, for instance, the following. “One morning,” says Captain Arn, “during a calm when near the Hebrides, all hands were called up at two a.m. to witness a battle between several of the fish called threshers or fox-sharks and some sword-fish, on one side, and an enormous whale on the other. It was in the middle of the summer; and the weather being clear and the fish close to the vessel, we had a fine opportunity of witnessing the contest. As soon as the whale’s back appeared above the water, the threshers, springing several yards into the air, descended with great violence upon the object of their rancour, and inflicted upon him the most severe slaps with their long tails, the sounds of which resembled the reports of muskets fired at a distance. The sword-fish, in their turn, attacked the distressed whale, stabbing from below; and thus beset on all sides, and wounded, when the poor creature appeared the water around him was dyed with blood. In this manner they continued tormenting and wounding him for many hours, until we lost sight of him; and I have no doubt they, in the end, completed his destruction. The master of a fishing-boat has recently observed that the thresher-shark serves out the whales, the sea sometimes being all blood. One whale attacked by these fish once took refuge under his vessel, where it lay an hour and a half without moving a fin. He also remarked having seen the threshers jump out of the water as high as the masthead and down upon the whale, while the sword-fish was wounding him from beneath, the two sorts of fish evidently acting in concert.” As the