136 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 



strite, being smooth, clean, and white ; the striated part 

 being usually gray and dirty. Besides this external 

 tusk, which is peculiar to the male, there is another on 

 the right side of the head, about nine inches long, firmly 

 imbedded in the skull. In females, as well as in young 

 males, in which the tooth does not appear externally, 

 the rudiments of three tusks will almost always be found 

 in the upper jaw. These are solid throughout, and are 

 placed back in the substance of the skull, about six 

 inches from its most prominent part. They are eight or 

 nine inches in length, both in the male and female ; in 

 the former they are smooth, tapering, and terminate at 

 the root with an oblique truncation ; in the latter they 

 have one extremely rough surface, finishing at the base 

 with a large irregular knob placed towards one side, which 

 gives the tusk the form almost of pocket pistols. Several 

 instances have occurred of male narwhales having been 

 taken which had two large external tusks. But this is 

 a very rare circumstance. Captain Scoresby states he 

 has never seen an external tusk on the right side of the 

 head ; though he thinks it not improbable but that some 

 which have been shown him, having no perforation up 

 the centre, might be tusks of the right side. If I recollect 

 right, the late Mr. Brookes had in his splendid Zootomical 

 Museum, one or two specimens wherein a short right 

 tusk was seen. Sir Everard Home, in his examination 

 of the tusks of the narwhale, found, on sawing one, that 

 it appeared solid, in a longitudinal direction, " a hollow 

 tube in the middle through the greater part of its 

 length, the point, and the portion at its root, only being 

 solid,"* as is represented in the engraving on the next 



page- 



* Philos. Trans, for 1813, p. 



