298 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



show us one or more. They have now become so common 

 that specimens which were formerly valued at many thou- 

 sand thalers can now be bought for a few dozen thalers. 

 Wherefore it is entirely false to suppose that they can come 

 from so rare a creature, which is simply a product of the 

 imagination and is therefore so variously described by 

 learned and unlearned alike." 



The tusk of the narwhal {Monodon monoceros) is only 

 found in the male of the species. While in general there is 

 but a single tusk, on the left side, it happens occasionally, 

 though rarely, that there are two, one on the left and the 

 other on the right side. Their length is sometimes more 

 than half that of the body of the animal itself, and a pecu- 

 liarity distinguishing these tusks from those of the elephant 

 is the fact that the central cavity is prolonged up to the end, 

 so that one can look through them as through a funnel. 

 The sides show the wonderfully beautiful spiral structure 

 that makes up the tusk when viewed from within or without. 



The earliest known mention of the unicorn appears in the 

 Indika of Ctesias of Knidos, who was for seventeen years, 

 from 416 to 398 B. C, the court physician of the Persian 

 monarchs, Darius II and his successor, Artaxerxes Mnemon. 

 The Indian unicorn which he describes, or attempts to de- 

 scribe, is most probably the rhinoceros, although so many 

 heterogeneous elements are grouped together that the attri- 

 bution cannot well be certain. One thing, however, is 

 interesting to note, namely, that even at this early time the 

 horns were believed to possess powers analogous to those 

 they were credited with in medieval times. Of this Ctesias 

 writes:* "These horns are made into drinking-cups, and 

 such as drink from them are attacked neither by convulsions 

 nor by the sacred disease [epilepsy]. Nay, they are not even 

 affected by poisons, if either before or after taking them they 



*McCrindIe, "Ancient India as Described by Ktesias the Knidian," London, 1882, p. 26. 



