436 DELPHINIDJl!. 



one occurrence on the coast of northern Norway, and 

 Wagner two on that of north-western Germany. 



In Britain the Narwhal has heen recorded on three 

 occasions. Tulpius {Obs. Med., p. 376) mentions one 

 taken in June 1648, in the Firth of Forth, near the Isle 

 of May {prope insulam Mai/am) ; it was twenty-two feet 

 long, in which measurement the tusk was doubtless 

 included. The second on record came ashore alive in 

 February 1800, near Boston in Lincolnshire ; an incorrect 

 drawing of this specimen, sent by Sir Joseph Banks to 

 Lacepede, seems to have been the origin of the Narwhalus 

 microcephalus of that writer. A third individual entangled 

 itself among rocks in the Sound of Weesdale, Shetland, in 

 September 1808, and was well described by Dr. Fleming 

 in the first volume of the "Memoirs of the Wernerian 

 Society ; " it was a male of twelve feet in length, v?ith a 

 tusk of twenty-seven inches. 



The Narwhal is a powerful and active creature, 

 swimming with almost incredible swiftness and consorting 

 in small herds or " schools." Scoresby well describes 

 its manners in the following passage : " A great many 

 Narwhals were often sporting about us,' sometimes in 

 bands of fifteen or twenty together; in several of them 

 each animal had a long horn. They were extremely 

 playful, frequently elevating their horns, and crossing 

 them with each other as in fencing. In the sporting of 

 these animals they frequently emitted a very unusual 

 sound resembling the gurgling of water in the throat, 

 which it probably was, as it only occurred when they 

 raised their horns, with the front part of the head and 

 mouth out of the water. Several of them followed the 

 ship, and seemed to be attracted by the principle of 

 curiosity at the sight of so unusual a body. The water 

 being perfectly transparent, they could be seen descend- 



