DESCRIPTION OF GKEENI.ANI). f301 



land animal. The prophet Isaiah, foretelling that God would 

 drive out the Jews from Jerusalem, speaks of their kings as 

 unicorns. " Descendent," says he, " Unicornes cum eis," 

 which could only have had reference to a terrestrial descent, 

 and if the prophet had believed the unicorns to be fishes, he 

 would have rather said "natabunt" instead of "descendent". 



I shall lay down, therefore, a species of sea unicorn in the 

 same manner as there have been laid down species of sea 

 dogs, sea calves, and sea wolves ; and this will be no novelty, 

 as Bartolin, a Danish author, in his treatise on unicorns, has 

 written a chapter expressly on sea unicorns. There arises, 

 however, a difficulty in opposition to this mode of classifica- 

 tion, for it is a question whether the sea unicorns of which we 

 are here speaking are really unicorns, and whether what we 

 call their horns are really horns or teeth. The solution of 

 the first doubt depends on that of the second ; for, if they 

 are teeth, these fish cannot be called unicorns, because they 

 would have no horns ; if, on the other hand, they are horns, 

 they would evidently be unicorns, because they would have 

 only one horn. M. Vormius affirms that they are teeth and 

 not horns, and I see that Angrimus Jonas calls them teeth, 

 in that part of his " Specimen Islandicum" where he speaks 

 of a remarkable shipwreck that befel a bishop of Greenland, 

 named Arnaud, on his way to Norway, whose vessel was 

 dashed in pieces by a storm within the isthmus of Western 

 Iceland. This shipwreck happened a. d. 1126. In the survey 

 that was taken of the things saved from the wreck, " Reperti 

 sunt," says the good Angrimus, " dentes balenarum, pre- 

 tiosi, et potiores, maris estu in siccum rejecti, ac Uteris Ru- 

 nicis, indelebili glutine rubescentis coloris, inscripti, vt 

 Nautarum quilibet sues, peracta aliquando navigatione, re- 

 cognosceret." 



Now it is certain that what Angrimus Jonas here calls 

 " Dentes balenarum prctiosos", is understood in Denmark, 

 and ought to be understood of these horns, which we call 



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