FIGHT BETWEEN A WHALE AND A SHARK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 254, 26 October 1877, Page 4

FIGHT BETWEEN A WHALE AND A SHARK.

\From Land and Water.] I send you a description of r that exciting spectacle, an encounter between a whale and his enemy, the thresher, which I had the good fortune to witness on a return voyage lately made from the Cape of Good Hope. We were cruising about the latitude of St. Helena one morning, when the excited voice of the captain, calling through the cuddy sky-lights, brought all the passengers on deck to see a thresher chasing a whale— a sight he said, so unuasual, that it had only come uuder his observation once before in the whole course of his maritime experience. * It was, indeed a grand spectacle. No sooner did the whale make his appearance on the surface of the ocean than his enemy, the threßher, a huge fish some 30ft long, piopeiled himself suddenly from the water, until at least two-thirds of bis body were exposed, and whirling his enormous pectoral fins like flails in tha air, brought them down aided 'by the impetus of his whole weight, with sledge - hammer blows upon the unfortunate whale, sending up a column of spray iu a grand shower around him as he rose, striking his victim with such force that the shock waa heard ou board the steamer, almost like the distant boom of a big guu, and this at the distance of half a mile. The whale sank rapidly from sight after receiving his punishment, but again rose to the surface after a comparatively short interval, and was no sooner visible tuaa the. tbreser, who seemed intuitively to have divined where he would come up, repeated his attack, followed by the same result, aod bo tbe Homeric battle went on, until both whale and thresher were lost in the distance, with what result it is impossible to say. An old whaling captain, who was on board, assured me tbat the whale often suocumbed in the end to the persistent attacks of V enemy, and that the circumstance of hia coming to the the surface so soon after his disappearance wa-} only v to be accounted for by the fact vouched for, as he aeaerted, by old whalers, that the thresher was always accompanied on these occasions, by a friendly swordfish, who did his best by stimulating the unfortunate cetacean with his sword to rise again to the surface, where he was awaited by his confederate but whether friendship only, or an ultimate share of the spoil was the reward of these services, this deponent further said not. It was a grand sight, and was hailed at the time with great enthusian, ss is very incident which tends to break the monotony of a long sea voyage. — Thresher.