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XVIII. On the Tusks of the Narwhale. By Sir Everard Home, 



Bart.F.R.S. 



Read February 18, 1813. 



1 HE structure of many animals that inhabit the great 

 Northern Ocean, is, even at this day, imperfectly known; this 

 arises from those who have the best opportunities of making 

 such enquiries not being fitted for them, or being too much 

 engaged in pursuits of a different nature. Under such circum- 

 stances too much praise cannot be bestowed on the few indivi- 

 duals, whose zeal for science induces them to exert themselves 

 in improving this branch of knowledge ; to one of these, Mr. 

 ScoRESBY, jun. I am indebted for the means of making the 

 following observations on the tusks of the narwhale. 



Mr. ScoRESBY told me, a year ago, that the female nar- 

 whale had no tusks, which astonished me ; and the only reply 

 I could make to such an assertion, was to beg that he would 

 procure me a skull, that I might be satisfied of the fact. This 

 he promised to do, and last summer sent me the skull 

 of a female, in which there was no appearance whatever of 

 tusks; and as the sutures were all united, there was every 

 reason to believe the time of having teeth had elapsed, parti- 

 cularly as a male skull of the same size, and in which the 

 sutures were not equally well united, had a tusk four feet 

 long. 



With such evidence before me, I was naturally led to adopt 



