90 THE NARWAL. 



been taken, which had two external tusks. This 

 is a rare circumstance, and it rarely or never occurs 

 that an external horn is found on the rijrht side. 



What purpose this singular and formidable tusk 

 can serve, is not easily to be determined. It is not 

 essential to the defence of the animal, or else the 

 young and a vast majority of the females would be 

 left unprotected. It has been suggested, that it is 

 employed by the animal in piercing thin ice for the 

 convenience of rising to respire, and that it is oc- 

 casionally employed in killing prey. But nothing 

 has yet been observed, sufficient to enable us to 

 draw any positive conclusion on the subject. 



The food of the narwal appears to be principally 

 molluscous animals, such as the cuttle-fish &c, but 

 judging by the materials occasionally found in their 

 stomachs, more substantial food is frequently de- 

 voured by them. In the stomach of one examined 

 by Scoresby, besides the beaks and other remains 

 of cuttle-fish, there was part of the spine of n pleu- 

 ronectes, or fiat-fish, probably a small turbot; frag- 

 ments of the spine of a gadus; the backbone of a 

 raia, with nearly a whole skate, raia-balis, which 

 was two feet three inches long, and one foot eight 

 inches broad. That an animal having no teeth ex- 

 cept the external tusk, a small mouth, and a tongue 

 incapable of protrusion, should be able to swallow 

 a fish nearly three times as great as the width of 

 its own mouth, is really surprising. Scoresby in- 

 clines to the opinion, that the skates had been 



