THE NARWHAL 157 
One of the strangest of all cetaceans is the Nar’wHAL,! a 
creature 16 feet long, mottled black and gray, with a blunt- 
ended head, no back fin, and with a very long, straight tusk 
of ivory projecting straight forward from its head. This 
ivory tusk, which is from 6 to 8 feet long, is twisted through- 
out its length, from left to right, and is developed only in 
the male. 
The Narwhal’s teeth, aside from a few that are merely 
rudimentary, are reduced to a single pair, lying horizontally 
in the upper jaw. In the female they remain permanently 
concealed. In the male the right tooth usually remains simi- 
larly concealed, but the left is enormously developed into the 
tusk just mentioned. Having no other teeth, the creature 
is obliged to feed upon squids, jelly-fish generally, and small 
fishes that can be swallowed whole. It is found in the polar 
waters of the North Atlantic, and the Arctic Ocean north 
of the Old World, but is now rare in accessible waters. When 
Nansen and Johansen were retreating southward over the 
ice, after their dash toward the pole, each man with three 
dogs dragging a sledge with a kyak upon it; the first living 
creature actually observed by them was the Narwhal, in the 
lanes of water then rapidly forming in the great ice-pack, in 
Latitude 83° 36’. 
1 Mon'o-don mon-o’ce-ros. 
