“The killer is the wolf of the sea and like the land wolves hunts in packs of twenty or more individuals which will attack and devour almost anything that swims.” This specimen, taken at Oshima, Japan, was twenty-six feet in length, and its skeleton was sent to the American Museum of Natural History. ] I did not think of connecting the movements of the whales with this fact, and seeing them so close I shouted to Ponting, who was standing abreast of the ship. He seized the camera and ran toward the floe edge to get a close picture of the beasts, which had momentarily disappeared. The next moment the whole floe under him and the dogs heaved up and split into fragments. One could hear the “booming” noise as the whales rose under the ice and struck it with their backs. [Illustration: A posterior view of a killer showing the high dorsal fin. In the male the dorsal is over six feet in height but in the female it is only four feet. ] Whale after whale rose under the ice, setting it rocking fiercely; luckily Ponting kept his feet and was able to fly to security. By an extraordinary chance also, the splits had been made around and between the dogs, so that neither of them fell into the water. Then it was clear that the whales shared our astonishment, for one after another their huge hideous heads shot vertically into the air through the cracks which they had made. As they reared them to a height of 6 or 8 feet it was possible to see their tawny head markings, their small glistening eyes, and their terrible array of teeth—by far the largest and most terrifying in the world. There cannot be a doubt that they looked up to see what had happened to Ponting and the dogs. The latter were horribly frightened and strained to their chains whining; the head of one killer must certainly have been within 5 feet of one of the dogs. After this, whether they thought the game insignificant, or whether they missed Ponting is uncertain, but the terrifying creatures passed on to other hunting grounds, and we were able to rescue the dogs, and, what was even more important, our petrol—5 or 6 tons of which was waiting on a piece of ice which was not split away from the main mass. Of course, we have known well that killer whales continually skirt the edge of the floes and that they would undoubtedly snap up any one who was unfortunate enough to fall into the water; but the facts that they could display such deliberate cunning, that they were able to break ice of such thickness (at least 2½ feet), and that they could act in unison, were a revelation to us. It is clear that they are endowed with singular intelligence, and in future we shall treat that intelligence with every respect.[11] Footnote 11: “Scott’s Last Expedition.” Arranged by Leonard Huxley. New York, 1913, Vol. I, pp. 65–66.