414 Fishes. 



THE SEA-UNICOKN, OK NARWHAL, 

 (Monodon monoceros,') 



A MARINE animal, differing from all the cetacea, to which 

 it belongs, in not having any teeth, properly so called, 

 and in being armed with a horn of seven or eight feet 

 in length, which projects from the head. This horn is 

 white, spirally twisted throughout its whole length, 

 and tapering to a point : it is harder, whiter, and more 

 valuable than the ivory of the elephant, and was for- 

 merly in high repute for its supposed medical proper- 

 ties : small ones may be sometimes seen set with an 

 elegant head as a walking-stick, and large specimens 

 have been employed as bed-posts. The animal itself 

 is from twenty to forty feet in length, and is occasionally 

 found with two horns ; indeed, there is always the 

 germ of a second horn both in the male and female, 

 though it is rarely developed in the former, and never 

 in the latter, from whioh we may conjecture that the 

 females trust entirely to the males for their defence, as 

 we know is the case with several of the mammalia. 

 When there is only one horn, it is always on the left 

 side of the head ; and when there are two, the horn on 

 the left side is always larger than the other. This 

 animal chiefly inhabits the arctic seas, and its food is 

 said to consist of the smaller kinds of flat fish and other 

 marine animals ; its horn is useful in breaking away 

 the ice when it wants to come up to breathe. The 

 blubber supplies a small quantity of very fine oil, and 

 the Greenlanders are very partial to the flesh. 



