THE NARWHAL, OR SEA UNICORN. 185 



in considerable surfaces, none at all are to be seen. 

 In sucklings the colour is wholly a bluish -grey or 

 slate colour. In one which was stranded in the 

 Elbe in 1736, Anderson states the skin was white 

 as snow, and marked with many dark spots to a 

 considerable depth ; the abdomen was every where 

 white and glistening, and soft to the touch like 

 velvet. 



The Narwhal has no true teeth in either jaw ; 

 but in the upper are found the most distinguishing 

 characters of the genus, two long straight and 

 pointed tusks, like spears, spirally twisted, and Im- 

 planted into the bones of the upper jaw the inter- 

 maxillaries ; their direction is forwards, somewhat 

 downwards, parallel to the palate bones. There is 

 literally no trace of any other teeth. When very 

 young, the germ of the teeth can be discovered on 

 each side of the mesial line, the subsequent elonga- 

 tion of which produces the sharp tusk of the adult. 

 Sometimes both germs are developed, and produce 

 two horizontal and diverging spears. Among a 

 considerable number of instances which might be ad- 

 duced, we mention only one beautiful exhibition of 

 this more perfect developement, which is preserved 

 in the museum of E/oeding at Hamburgh. In this 

 specimen, when they start from the bone, the tusks 

 are only two inches apart, but they steadily diverge 

 and their points are thirteen inches asunder. The 

 left tusk is seven feet five inches, and the right seven 

 feet long. It much more frequently happens, how- 

 ever, that only one of these germs grows ; and that 



