In Japan killers are abundant, especially near Korea, and I have seen numbers of the animals in the Bering Sea and along the coast of Vancouver Island. The Japanese call the killer “_takamatsu_” and in various parts of America it is known as the orca, thresher, or grampus. The two latter terms are especially confusing and inappropriate, for the name thresher properly belongs to a shark and grampus to a species of porpoise (_Grampus griseus_). The trident-shaped area of white, the white spots behind the eyes, and the enormous dorsal fin are very conspicuous on the black body, and the animal may be recognized at a long distance; fœtal specimens have orange-buff where the adult is white. The killer can swim at a tremendous speed and because of the nature of its food the sounds and bays along the coast which swarm with every variety of marine life are more frequently its feeding grounds than the open sea. Scammon says that the killer is a menace to even the full-grown walrus, especially when pups are with their parents. He states that sometimes the young walrus will mount upon its mother’s back to avoid the killer and that then “the rapacious orca quickly dives, and, coming up under the parent animal, with a spiteful thud throws the young one from the dam’s back into the water, when in a twinkling it is seized, and, with one crush, devoured by its adversary.”[13] Footnote 13: (_l. c._, p. 92.) The killer’s habit of forcing open a whale’s mouth and eating the tongue from the living animal, is an extraordinary method of attack which has long been recorded by the whalemen who hunted the Arctic bowhead. I must confess, however, that I had always been skeptical as to the accuracy of this report until my own experiences with the gray whales in Korea, where its truth was clearly demonstrated. Another story which is undoubtedly purely mythical, although it has astonishingly wide credence, is that of “the swordfish and the thresher.” It is said that a swordfish with a killer will attack a large whale, prodding the animal from below with its “sword” and preventing it from diving, while the killer tears out the tongue. [Illustration: An anterior view of a killer. The heavy teeth and the white spot just behind the eye are well shown. ] I have personally interviewed a number of men who were reported to have witnessed such a combat, but have never yet found one who had seen a swordfish, or had any evidence of one being there, although the killer could easily be seen. They usually defend their story by saying that a swordfish must have been below, otherwise the whale would have sounded. Undoubtedly what prevents the whale from diving is the fact that it becomes paralyzed with fright and so utterly confused that it is unable to escape.