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in its way ; whom when the unicorn fpies, he lies down by 

 her, and lays his head on her lap, and foon falls aOeep ; upon 

 which the virgin makes a fignal, the hunters come in, and 

 take the beaft ; which could never be caught any other 

 way, becaufe it would either caft itfelf headlong from the 

 rock, or die. For an account of the animal to which the 

 appellation of the unicorn has been applied, fee Rhino- 

 ceros. 



What ordinarily pafTes among us for unicorn's horn, and 

 ie (hewn for fuch in the coUeftion of curiofities, and ufed 

 for fuch by feveral phyficians, we are allured by Pereyra, 

 in his account of Greenland, &c. is the tooth of a large fifh 

 of the whale kind, called by the idanders narwal ; frequent 

 enough in the icy fea. The tooth or horn, turned, chan- 

 nelled, and terminating in a point, as it is, fprings out of the 

 middle of the fore-part of the upper iaw, where it has a root 

 a foot long, as thick as the horn itfelf : it is the only tooth 

 the animal has in the upper jaw, and ferves it as a weapon of 

 defence, with which it dares to attack the largeft whale. 

 There is a fine horn of this kind preferved in the repofitory 

 of ^t. Denis at Paris, given by And. Thevet, and pretended 

 to have been a prefent to him from the king of Monomo- 

 tapa, who carried him to hunt the unicorn ; which is fre- 

 quent in that country : this horn fome have fufpefted to be 

 an elephant's tooth, carved in that manner. At Strafburgh 

 there is another between feven and eight fe?t long. In the 

 repofitory at Venice there is a good number ; all different 

 from each other. 



The ancients held the unicorn's horn to be a counter- 

 poifon ; and that the animal ufed to dip it in the water, to 

 purify and fweeten it, ere it would drink : it is added, that 

 for the fame reafon other beafts wait to fee this creature 

 drink before them. Thence, as alfo from the rarity of the 

 thing, people have taken occafion to attribute divers medi- 

 cinal virtues to it. 



But Amb. Pare has proved it a mere piece of charleta- 

 nery, and all the virtues attributed to it to be falfe ; and 

 yet the price it has borne is almofl: incredible. Andrea 

 Racci, a phyfician of Florence, affirms the pound of fixteen 

 Qunces to have been at one time fold, in the apothecaries' 

 (hops, for fifteen hundred and thirty-fix crowns, when the 

 fame weight of gold was only worth one hundred and 

 forty-eight crowns. See Rhinoceros. 



The unicorn is one of the fupporters of the arms of Eng- 

 land. This beaft is reprefented, by heralds, paffant, and 

 fometimes rampant. When in this laft aftion, as in the 

 Englifh arms, it is properly faid to he fail/ant. Argent, an 

 unicorn fejant fable, armed and unguled, or, borne by the 

 name of Harding. 



Unicorn, Sea, the name of a fifh of the whale kind, 

 called alfo narhual, or narwal, remarkable for having a horn 

 growing out at its nofe, in the manner of the fuppofed 

 unicorn's horn, as defcribed by many too credulous authors. 

 It is the only fpecies of monodon in the Linnxan fyftem. 



This fifh feeds on flefh, or other fifh, and is not only found 

 in the main fea, but fometimes gets up into large rivers. 

 In the year 1736 there was a large one caught in the river 

 Ofte, near its difcharging itfelf into the Elbe, in the duchy 

 of Bremen ; this place is four German miles from the fea. 

 The fkin of this fifh was fpotted with dark-brown fpots 

 upon a white ground ; the epidermis was tranfparent ; and 

 under it was another lliin very thin and fpotted ; but the 

 true (kin was brown, and near an inch in thicknefs. On 

 the top of the head there is only a femi-lunar hole, as in 

 the porpoifes ; this hole opens into the two channels, 

 which run through the /kull to the palate, and are called 

 the duftus hydragogi. The people who examined this 



creature were not able to find any aperture in the body 

 for tlie difcharge of the excrements ; whence it has been 

 generally believed, that the creature voids them through 

 t.iis paffage in the head. 



Authors have differed in the name of the procefs iffuing 

 from the head ; fome calling it a horn, others a tooth ; 

 fome are of opinion that it ferves to break the ice for air ; 

 but oihers pretend that it is an offenfive weapon, with 

 which it wounds the common whale, and otlier large fifh ; 

 and that when it has plunged it up to the head in the 

 whale's body, it fucks the juices of that animal. 



The fifh was near twenty feet long, and about four feet 

 in diameter. The horn ftood on the fore-part of the head, 

 jufl above the mouth, and was fix feet long, white like 

 ivory, and curioufly wreathed or twilled. The body was 

 fmooth and flippery, like that of an eel ; the head, in pro- 

 portion to the body, was fmall, not exceeding fixteen inches 

 in length, and the fame in diameter ; the eyes not larger 

 than a fixpence. It had, on each fide of the neck, two 

 black fins, one above another at a fmall dillance ; thefe 

 were two feet long, of the breadth of a hand, and about 

 half an inch in thicknefs. See the account of this filh by 

 Dr. Stcigertahl, and Dr. Hampe, in Phil. Tranf. N°447. 

 p. 197, and p. 149. or Abr. vol. ix. p. 71, &c. 



This unicorn's horn has been fo common in the Danifli 

 and neighbouring feas, that there was a magnificent throne 

 built only of them in that kingdom ; the horns are from ten 

 to fifteen feet in length, and are all white, and furrowed 

 with a fpiral line. 



Unicorn's hern has the fame medicinal virtues with hart's 

 horn and ivory ; but at prefent is only kept as an ornament 

 in druggifts' fhops. 



Unicorn, Sea, is alfo a name given to two forts of fmall 

 fifh caught in the American feas, and known among authors 

 under the name of Monoceros pifcis. 



Unicornu Fojftle, Foffile Unicorn's Horn, the name of a 

 fubflance much uled in medicine in fome parts of the world, 

 but which feems to have been verv little underftood by 

 many who have written of it. Dr. Hill, from the examin- 

 ation of the feveral varieties of fhapes it is found in, and 

 trying it by the feveral tefts which fix the criterions of 

 folfils, has determined it to be no other than a terrene cruf- 

 taceous fpar, not very different from the ofteocolla, and 

 other bodies of that genus, which he has called the cibdelo- 

 placia ; and has diftinguilhed this peculiar fpecies by the 

 name cibdeloplacium alLido-fubcinereum, friabile, fuperjicie /irvi, 

 or the whitifh-grey friable cruftaceous fpar, with a fmooth 

 furface. 



It differs principally from the ofteocolla in its foftnefs, 

 and the fmoothnefs of its furface ; but from its having, 

 like many other of the cruftaceous terrene fpars, the pro- 

 perty of encrufting, and fometimes even permeating the 

 pores of bodies, and in a manner petrifying them, it has 

 obtained the names of the things it thus lodges itfelf in 

 and about, which being ufually bone, and fome of them 

 bones of an extraordinary fize and figure, have been taken 

 for the bones and horns of unicorns ; and the name and 

 nature of the body itfelf wholly loft and neglefted, and that 

 of the horn, y/iih that of its imaginary animal, only pre- 

 ferved. 



They are, however, now fenfible in Germany, that it is 

 not the horn, but this fubftance, which is lodged about it, 

 which is the medicine ; for they never ufe the foffile bones 

 which are petrified in the common way, but only fuch as are 

 impregnated with this fparry fubftance ; and even ufe all 

 fubftances whatever, which are impregnated with this, 

 whether bones or wood, under the fame name, calling the 



natural 



