precisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to the professed
naturalist. From what I have seen of him at a distance, I should say
that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is very savage—a sort of
Feegee fish. He sometimes takes the great Folio whales by the lip, and
hangs there like a leech, till the mighty brute is worried to death.
The Killer is never hunted. I never heard what sort of oil he has.
Exception might be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale, on the
ground of its indistinctness. For we are all killers, on land and on
sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included.
Reader Mode
Moby Dick; Or, The Whale · BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER IV. (_Killer_).—Of this whale little is
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