260 



HISTORY OF FISHES. 



They make their abode beside it ; and seldom 

 remove till they have left nothing but the 

 bones. 



Jacobson, whom we quoted before in tlie 

 History of Birds, where he described his 

 countrymen of the island of Feroe as living a 

 part of the year upon salted gulls, tells us 

 also, that they are very fond of salted whale's 

 flesh. The fat of the head they season with 

 bay salt, and then hang it up to dry in the 

 chimney. He thinks it tastes as well as fat 

 bacon; and the lean, which they boil, is, in 

 his opinion, not inferior to beef. I fancy 

 poor Jacobson would make but an indifferent 

 taster at one of our city feasts 1 



CHAP. IV. 



OF THE NARWHAL. 1 

 (See Plate XIV. fig. 20.) 



FROM whales that entirely want teeth, we 

 tome to such as have them in the upper jaw 



the surface, to throw one of her fins over the body of the 

 young whale, and to endeavour to drag it away by all 

 the force she possessed ; she, lastly, in this way set off 

 with it in a straight direction, carrying away additional 

 tine, to the extent of seven hundred and twenty fathoms; 

 but by that time, the young one became so much ex- 

 hausted from loss of blood, that she necessarily aban- 

 doned it to its fate, and herself escaped, by pursuing her 

 progress towards the ice, roaring and spouting with 

 great vehemence ; for when a whale is struck with a 

 harpoon, or is enraged by the loss of its young, it ejects 

 the water through its spiracles with great force, produc- 

 ing a striduous kind of roaring, which may be heard the 

 distance of a mile. 



1 The Beluga or White fThale. The general appear- 

 ance of this very beautiful animal will be perceived from 

 the following cut. A Beluga for nearly three months 



during the summer of 1815 was observed to inhabit the 

 Frith of Forth, passing upwards almost every day with 

 the tide, and returning with the ebbing of the waters. 

 During this time it was generally known under the 

 name of the White Whale, and was supposed fre- 

 quently to be in pursuit of salmon. Many fruitless at- 

 tempts were made to secure it ; but at length it was 

 killed by the salmon-fishers, by means of spears and 

 fire-arms. It was purchased by Mr Bald of Alloa, and 



only ; and in this class is found but one, the 

 Narwhal, or Sea-unicorn. This fish is not so 

 large as the whale, not being above sixty feet 

 long. Its body is slenderer than that of the 

 whale, and its fat not in so great abundance. 

 But this great animal is sufficiently distin- 

 guished from all others of the deep by its 

 tooth, or teeth, which stand pointing directly 

 forward from the upper jaw, and are from nine 

 to fourteen feet long. In all the variety of wea- 

 pons with which Nature has armed her various 

 tribes, there is not one so large or so formid- 

 able as this. This terrible weapon is gener- 

 ally found single, and some are of opinion 

 that the animal is furnished but with one by 

 nature ; but there is at present the skull of a 

 narwhal at the Stadthouse at Amsterdam, 

 with two teeth ; which plainly proves that in 

 some animals, at least, this instrument is 

 double. It is even a doubt whether it may 

 not. be so in all ; and that the narwhal's want- 

 ing a tooth is only an accident which it has 

 met with in the encounters it is obliged daily 

 to be engaged in. Yet it must be owned, of 

 those that are taken only with one tooth, there 

 seem no socket, nor no remains of any other 

 upon the opposite side of the jaw, but all is 

 plain and even. However this be, the tooth, 

 or, as some are pleased to call it, the horn 

 of the narwhal, is the most terrible of all 

 natural instruments of destruction. It is 

 as straight as an arrow, about the thickness 

 of the small of a man's leg, wreathed in the 

 manner we sometimes see twisted bars of 



transmitted by him to Professor Jameson, and is now 

 in the Royal museum at Edinburgh. It was examined 

 by Drs Barclay and Neil, whose observations are pub- 

 lished in Trans, ffernerian Soc. vol. iii. 



The food of the Beluga is said to be cod, haddocks, 

 flounders, and smaller fish of this description. It seeks 

 them with perseverance, pursues them with ardour, and 

 devours them with avidity. Its favourite haunts are 

 evidently the higher latitudes of the Arctic regions. 

 They are plentiful in Hudson's bay, Davis's straits, and 

 on some parts of the northern coasts of Asia and Amer- 

 ica, where they frequent the large rivers. Steller men- 

 tions them as being found at Kamtschatka ; and accord- 

 ing to Charleroix, they are numerous in the Gulf of St 

 Lawrence, and go with the tide as high as Quebec. 

 There are fisheries both for them and the porpoise in 

 that river. A considerable quantity of oil is obtained, 

 and of their skins is made a sort of morocco leather, 

 thin, yet strong enough to resist a musket-ball (Pen. 

 Art. Zool. i. 183). They also abound near Disco 

 island in Greenland, and are not uncommon in Spitz- 

 bergen. Mr Scorseby never observed them lower than 

 Jan Mayen's land. This navigator also remarks, that 

 he has seldom seen them among the ice, but in thos 

 places where the water is clearest and smoothest. They 

 are not at all shy, but often follow the ships, and tumble 

 about the boats in herds of thirty or forty ; bespangling 

 the surface with their splendid whiteness. They are 

 seldom pursued by the whale fishers, not only because 

 it is difficult to strike them, on account of their great 

 activity ; but because the harpoon often gives way ; and 

 they are, moreover, of comparatively little value when 

 killed. It is only a few stragglers that are seen in the 



