210 MAMMALIA. 
Monopon, Lin. 
The Narwhals have no teeth properly speaking, but mere long, 
straight and pointed tusks, implanted in the intermaxillary bone, 
and directed in the line of the axis of the body. The form of their 
body and that of their head greatly resemble that of the Porpoises. 
One species only is well known, the 
M. monoceros, L.; Scoresby, Arct. Reg. pl. xv.(1) The Nar- 
whal.) ‘The tusk of this animal, which is spirally furrowed and 
sometimes ten feet in length, was for a long time called the 
hornof the Unicorn. It has, it is true, the germs of two tusks, 
but it is very seldom that both become equally developed. That 
of the ‘left side usually attains its full growth, while the other 
always remains hidden in its alveolus.(2) According to the 
description of the Narwhal, it is hardly more than twice or 
thrice the length of its tusks the skin is marbled with brown 
and a kind of white; the muzzle is arched; mouth small; spira- 
cle on top of the head, and no dorsal fin, but merely a salient 
crest along the spine. The tusks are sometimes found perfectly 
smooth.(3) 
The other Cetacea have the head so large as to constitute 
one third or one half of the length of the whole body; but 
neither the cranium nor the brain participate in this dispro- 
belongs to the Grampus, isthe same as the T'wo-toothed Dolphin of Hunter; Baus- 
sard expressly mentions its two teeth. It is also the Balena rostrata of Klein and 
of Chemnitz, Besch. der Berl. ges. 1V, p. 183; of Pennant, Brit. Zool. No. V; of 
Pontoppidan, Nor. II, 120; the Bottle-head of Dale, &c. Chemnitz found one of 
the teeth. See Oss. Foss. tom. V, p. 1, f. 324. ; 
(1) The Narval microcephale, Lacep. pl. v, f. 2, is nothing more ttian a common 
Narwhal, not quite so badly figured as in pl. iv, f. 3, which is copied from a bad 
drawing of Klein, Pisc. per Pulm. Resp. pl. ii, fig. c, from an individual captured 
in the Elbe in 1736, afterwards stuffed and exhibited in Dresden. Anderson gives 
a rather better figure of the same individual. Fr. Tr. II, p. 108. 
(2) We have found this small tusk in several crania, and verified the statements 
of Anderson on this subject. It is prevented from being developed by its internal 
cavity becoming too rapidly filled with the matter of the ivory, which thus obliter- 
ates its gelatinous core. 
(3) The Monodon spurius of Fabricius, or Anarkak of Greenland, (Ancylodon, 
Illig.) which has but two small curved teeth in the upper jaw and a dorsal fin, 
cannot be far removed from the Hyper oodon. Val, wale, in all the languages, de- 
rived from the Teutonic, signifies Whale, and is often employed for the Cetacea in 
general; nar, .in the language’ of the Icelanders, means cadaver, or dead body, 
and it is pretended that such is the mee of this genus. 
