and written about
in the year 1790. At other places on the Australian coast there are
permanent pods of ten, fifteen or twenty, but those at Twofold Bay are
quite famous, and every individual member of them is well-known, not
only to the local whalemen, but to many of the other residents of
Twofold Bay as well, and it would go hard with the man who attempted to
either kill or injure one of any of the members of the two pods, for the
whalemen would be unable to carry on their business were it not for
the assistance rendered to them by their friends the killers, whose
scientific name, by the way, is _Orca Gladiator_--and a more fitting
appellation could never have been applied.

Now as to the colouring and markings--which are not only diverse, but
exceedingly curious. Some are of a uniform black, brown, dark grey, or
dirty cream; others are black with either streaks or irregular patches
of yellow, white or grey: others again are covered with patches of
black, white or yellow, ranging in size from half a dozen inches in
diameter to nearly a couple of feet. One which the present writer found
lying dead on the reef of Nukulaelae Island, in the Ellice Group, was
almost a jet black with the exception of some poorly defined white
markings on the dorsal fin and belly; another which he saw accidentally
killed by a bomb fired at a huge whale off the Bampton Shoals, was of a
reddish-brown, with here and there almost true circular blotches of pure
white. This poor fellow was twelve feet in length, and his death was
caused by his frantic greediness to get at the whale and take his toll
of blubber. The whale was struck late in the day, and the sea was so
rough that the officer in charge, after having twice tried to get up and
use his lance, determined to end the matter with a bomb before darkness
came on. At this time there was a "pod" of seven killers running side by
side with the whale and endeavouring to fasten to his lips whenever he
came to the surface; and, just as the officer had succeeded in getting
within firing distance and discharging the bomb, poor _Gladiator_ came
in the way, and was killed by the shot, much to the regret of the boat's
crew.

For, as I have said, the whalemen--and particularly the shore whalemen,
_i.e_., those who do their whaling from a station on shore--regard, and
with good reason, the killers as invaluable allies. Especially is this
so in the case of the Twofold Bay shore whalers, for out of every t