THE NARWHAL 157 



One of the strangest of all cetaceans is the Nar'whal, 1 a 

 creature 16 feet long, mottled black and gray, with a blunt- 

 ended head, no back fin, and with a very long, straight tusk 

 of ivory projecting straight forward from its head. This 

 ivory tusk, which is from 6 to 8 feet long, is twisted through- 

 out its length, from left to right, and is developed only in 

 the male. 



The Narwhal's teeth, aside from a few that are merely 

 rudimentary, are reduced to a single pair, lying horizontally 

 in the upper jaw. In the female they remain permanently 

 concealed. In the male the right tooth usually remains simi- 

 larly concealed, but the left is enormously developed into the 

 tusk just mentioned. Having no other teeth, the creature 

 is obliged to feed upon squids, jelly-fish generally, and small 

 fishes that can be swallowed whole. It is found in the polar 

 waters of the North Atlantic, and the Arctic Ocean north 

 of the Old World, but is now rare in accessible waters. When 

 Nansen and Johansen were retreating southward over the 

 ice, after their dash toward the pole, each man with three 

 dogs dragging a sledge with a kyak upon it, the first living 

 creature actually observed by them was the Narwhal, in the 

 lanes of water then rapidly forming in the great ice-pack, in 

 Latitude 83° 36'. 



1 Mon'o-don mon-o' ce-ros . 



