gonies, stinkards, haglets,
gulls, pigeons, petrels, and other sea-birds, which commenced to feed
on pieces of the whale's carcass with the most savage gluttony. These
birds were dreadfully greedy. They had stuffed themselves so full in
the course of a short time, that they flew heavily and with great
difficulty. No doubt they would have to take three or four days to
digest that meal!

Sharks, too, came to get their share of what was going. But these
savage monsters did not content themselves with what was thrown away;
they were so bold as to come before our faces and take bites out of the
whale's body. Some of these sharks were eight and nine feet long, and
when I saw them open their horrid jaws, armed with three rows of
glistening white sharp teeth, I could well understand how easily they
could bite off the leg of a man, as they often do when they get the
chance. Sometimes they would come right up on the whale's body with a
wave, bite out great pieces of the flesh, turn over on their bellies,
and roll off.

While I was looking over the side during the early part of that day, I
saw a very large shark come rolling up in this way close to Tom
Lokins's legs. Tom made a cut at him with his blubber-spade, but the
shark rolled off in time to escape the blow. And after all it would
not have done him much damage, for it is not easy to frighten or take
the life out of a shark.

"Hand me an iron and line, Bob," said Tom, looking up at me. "I've got
a spite agin that feller. He's been up twice already. Ah! hand it
down here, and two or three of ye stand by to hold on by the line.
There he comes, the big villain!"

The shark came close to the side of the whale at that moment, and Tom
sent the harpoon right down his throat.

"Hold on hard," shouted Tom.

"Aye, aye," replied several of the men as they held on to the line,
their arms jerking violently as the savage fish tried to free itself.
We quickly reeved a line through a block at the fore yard-arm, and
hauled it on deck with much difficulty. The scene that followed was
very horrible, for there was no killing the brute. It threshed the
deck with its tail, and snapped so fiercely with its tremendous jaws,
that we had to keep a sharp look-out lest it should catch hold of a
leg. At last its tail was cut off, the body cut open, and all the
entrails' taken out, yet even after this it continued to flap and
thresh about the deck for some time, and the heart contin