142 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 



valued as a great curiosity, and sold excessively dear, 

 until the Greenland fishery commenced, when the 

 whalers found plenty of these animals in the northern 

 part of Davis's Straits. He observes, they are so com- 

 mon in the north of Greenland that the natives, for want 

 of wood, make rafters for their houses of them. The 

 sailors, he continues, consider this animal as the har- 

 binger or fore-runner of the common whale. 



Dr. Shaw states that the narwhale may now be 

 numbered among the animalia rarioro of the British 

 zoology.* 



SPECIES II. 



MONODON MICROCEPHALIA, OR SMALL-HEADED 

 NARWHALE. 



This species* is of considerable size, varying from 

 twelve to twenty-six feet in length, and of proportional 

 circumference. Its body is of a narrower and more 

 conical shape than that of the former species, and its 

 head considerably smaller. Its upj^er surface is more 

 flat and even. The colour of its upper parts is usually 

 a dusky black, variegated with spots which, from being 

 of a darker hue, are not very apparent. On the sides 



* Shaw's Zoology, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 476. Memoirs of the Wenierian 

 Society, vol. i. p. 131. 



