The bal?na penetrates even to our seas. It is said that they are not to be seen in the ocean of Gades before the winter solstice, and that at periodical seasons they retire and conceal themselves in some calm capacious bay. This fact, however, is known to the orca, an animal which is peculiarly hostile to the bal?na, and the form of which cannot be in any 126 way adequately described, but as an enormous mass of flesh armed with teeth. This animal attacks the bal?na with its young, in its places of retirement, and as they turn to defend themselves, it pierces them just as though they had been attacked by the beak of a Liburnian galley. The bal?n?, devoid of all flexi............