102 VOYAGE INTO 



When we see plenty of them, the skippers say it is a sign of 

 a good year for catching of whales, for if these find good 

 food, the whales find the same also. We saw on the 19th of 

 June some hundreds of them. 



6. Of the Unicorn.i 



The unicorn is but seldom seen in these parts, neither had 

 I the good fortune to meet with one in all my voyage ; and 

 yet sometimes many of them are seen. I do not find that 

 the cuts that I have seen in some books agree with the de- 

 scription that I have heard thereof; for I was informed that 

 he hath no finn on his back, as he is drawn ; he hath also a 

 spout hole in his neck. When they swim swiftly in the M-ater 

 they say that they hold up their horns, or rather teeth, out 

 of the water, and so go in great shoals. The shape of their 

 body is like a seal; the undermost finns, and the tail, are like 

 unto those of the whale. The skin of some of them is black, 

 some like a grey dappled horse ; underneath their belly they 

 are white. They are from sixteen to twenty feet long. They 

 swim very swiftly, that although they are seen, yet they are 

 but seldom caught. 



7. Of the Saw -Fish, sometimes called the S word-Fish.^ 



This fish has his name from a saw, which is a long broad 

 bone fixed to his nose, that hath on each side many pointed 

 teeth or peggs, like a comb. He hath two finns on his back, 

 the uppermost of them is like the hutshopfs, the undermost 

 hath behind, towards the tail, a hollowness like unto a sickle. 

 Underneath his belly he hath four, on each side two, the 

 uppermost thereof towards the head are the broadest and 

 longest, but the lowermost are somewhat shorter and nar- 



^ The Narwhal {Monodon monoceros). 



^ I'ristin antiquorum ; the Saw-fish, a fish belonging to the same order 

 as the sharks. 



