THE AKCTIC SEAS. 149 



like the AVliale, but much more graceful. The colour 

 is grey above, and pure white beneath, the whole 

 spotted or mottled with a blackish hue. From the 

 head projects a long straight horn of solid ivory, 

 in the same line as the body ; sometimes, but rarely, 

 there are two. The structure and origin of this 

 horn (which has given much celebrity to this hand- 

 some creature) are very peculiar. It is, in fact, the 

 tooth, and the only one it possesses in general ; the 

 fellow-tooth, however, exists within the bone of 

 the jaw, but undeveloped, lying shut up like the 

 kernel of a nut. It is usually the left tooth that 

 projects. Considerable uncertainty exists about the 

 use of this long and spiral tusk. Some have sup- 

 posed that it is used to search for food, by raking 

 in the mud at the bottom, or to pierce thin ice at 

 the surface, to obtain access to the air; but Mr. 

 Scoresby appears to have thrown considerable light 

 upon it, by having met with an individual in whose 

 stomach, among the remains of other fishes, was 

 found a skate, almost entire, which was two feet 

 three inches long, and one foot eioht inches wide. 

 " Now it appears remarkable," observes this gentle- 

 man, " that the Narwhal, an animal without teeth, 

 a small mouth, and with stiff lips, should be able 

 to catch and swallow so large a fish as a skate, the 

 breadth of which is nearly three times as great as tha 

 width of its own mouth. It seems probable that the 

 skates had been pierced v)ith the horn, and killed 

 before they were devoured ; otherwise it is difficult 

 to ima<?ine how the Narwhal could have swallowed 

 them, or how a fish of any activity would have per- 



