THE NARWHAL, OR SEA UNICORN. 187 



smooth and clean, whilst all the rest is rough and 

 dirty, and especially from a broken tusk being 

 found nibbed down and rounded, it is not im- 

 probable it may be used in piercing thin ice, for 

 the convenience of respiting, preventing the necessity 

 of retreat into open water." (491). And again in his 

 " Journal of a Voyage," &c. we find the following 

 interesting statement : " My father sent me the 

 contents of the stomach of a Narwhal killed a feu- 

 leagues to the westward of us, which were very 

 extraordinary. They consisted of several half-di 

 gested fishes, with others of which only the bones 

 remained. These were remains of a cuttle fish, 

 part of the spine of a flat fish, probably a small 

 turbot, and a skate almost entire. The last was 

 two feet three inches in length, and one foot eight 

 inches in breadth. It comprised the bones of the 

 head, back, and tail, the side fins, and considerable 

 portions of the muscular substance. It appears re- 

 markable that the Narwhal, an animal without 

 teeth, a small mouth, and with stiff lips, should be 

 able to catch and swallow so large a fish as a skate, 

 the breadth of which is nearly three times as great 

 as the width of its own mouth. As the animal in 

 which these remains were found had a horn of 

 seven feet, I apprehend that this instrument had 

 been employed in the capture of the fishes on which 

 it had recently fed. It seerns probable that the 

 skates had been pierced with the horn and killed 

 before they were devoured ; otherwise it is difficult 

 to imagine how the Narwhal could have swallowed 



