l60 THILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1738. 



short of some months, which he might have Hved, had he used no other re- 

 medies than a slender relaxing diet. 



^ Catalogue of the Fifty Plants from Chelsea-Gardens, presented to the Royal 

 Society by the Company of Apothecaries, for the Year 1736, pursuant to 

 the Direction of Sir Hans Sloane, Bart. P. R. S. By Isaac Rand, F, R. S. 

 N°447, p. 143. 



This is the 15th annual present, amounting to 750 plants. 



Of a Narhwal* or Unicorn Fish, taken in the River Ost, in the Duchy of 

 Bremen. By Dr. Steigertahl, F.R.S. N°447, p. 147. 



Towards the end of Jan. 1736, n. s. was taken a sort of whale, called the 

 narhwal or sea-unicorn. It was taken in the river Ost, near the village Bellum, 

 where it falls into the Elbe, in the duchy of Bremen, 4 German miles from 

 the sea. A great quantity of fat was taken out of it, to make whale-oil; but 

 this train-oil was of almost intolerable stench, because this narhwal feeds on 

 carcasses: for nar signifies a carcass or dead body, according to Valentini in his 

 Museum Museorum. 



Such care was taken of the skin, before the dissection, that it was cured 

 with salt and alum, and stuffed so as to give the just figure of the fish: having 

 left with it the bones of the skull, and some vertebrae near the tail. 



The skin was spotted with dark brown spots on a white ground. The epi- 

 dermis was transparent, and under it was another skin very thin and spotted ; 

 but the true skin was brown, and near an inch in thickness. On the top of 

 the head was a semilunar hole, as in the porpoise, according to the description 

 given by John Daniel Major, and published in the Miscell. Academ. Nat. Cu- 

 rios. Dec. 1, An. 3, p. 22. This hole opens into the two canals which run 

 through the skull to the palate, and are called by Major, ductus hydragog. 

 They did not remark in the skin any opening or outlet for the excrements; 

 and it is said, that this narhwal voided them through the hole on the top 

 of the head. 



Concerning the horn. Dr. S. agrees in opinion with Wormius and others, 

 who take it for a tooth ; but he cannot believe that its sole use is to break the 

 ice : it rather serves the fish for seeking its food. A captain of a Greenland 

 vessel assured him, that being on the coast a whale-fishing, and having taken 

 one, as he was turning the whale to get at the fat, he found on the opposite 



* Monodon monoceros. Linn. 



