138 NATURAL HISTORY of NORJVA T. 



fins, and a whitiih skin, with black fpots : this is thick, and fit 

 to cover trunks and portmanteaus. What diftinguifhes the Nor- 

 whal from other fpecies, is a long and pointed horn, of ten feet 

 or more in length, projecting from his head, with which he 

 wounds other Fifh." He adds, that he has (een them, though 

 they are fcarce, and difficult to be taken. I had two of thefe 

 horns in my cabinet, but made prefents of them to my friends, 

 who are admirers of natural curiofities. Thefe were very much 

 valued when they were thought to be the horn of an imaginary 

 land-animal, called the Unicorn ; but that miflake has fince been 

 cleared up,' by the difcovery of this Fifh, and the former is only 

 confidered as a chimera; tho', on the contrary, one might pre- 

 fume that there is fuch a creature, from the analogy between land 

 and fea animals. " Nuperis annis ex Groenlandia navibus 

 fuis onuflis, ampliffimus Vir Henricus Muller, Quaeflor Regius 8c 

 Confiliarius, accepit copiam dentium baleng quam Narhval vocant, 

 feu unicornua borealia, multa 8c grandia, quorum aliqua trium ul- 

 narum longitudinem sequabant," fays Tb. Bartholin, in Actis Med. 

 Anno 1673, Obf. 31. He has alfo written a particular account of 

 it 5 and, cap. xv. difcovers the fraud which the traders formerly 

 pra&ifed, by pretending that this Whale's horn was the horn of 

 a land-animal. 



The many large horns which were brought from Greenland at 

 that time, he fays, were ufed as materials towards compleating 

 the magnificent throne, which is now to be {een in the cafUe of 

 Rofenberg at Copenhagen. This author, as well as Ol. Wormius^ 

 Schonveldius, and Jacobseus, afcribes a medicinal virtue to this 

 horn, tho' not fo great as imagined by fome others ; for at one 

 time it was efteemed to be almofl as valuable as Gold. See the 

 latter part of p. 1 4. of that author's Mus Regium *. 

 Ncbbe-fiia. The Nebbe-fild, the Needie-fi(h, is alfo called Siil,and Acus Ma- 

 rise, Mary's Needle, probably from its long and narrow fhape ; for I 

 have feen fome eighteen inches long, and their bodies not thicker 

 than a large quill. Their tail, which is almofl half their length, is as 

 fmall as a flraw, and at the end it tapers away to a mere thread. 

 The head, like the reft of the body, is not round, but angular, 

 and the mouth is like the beak of a fowl, though at the extre- 

 mity it is raifed a little, fo as to make a flat blunt fnout. They 

 breed and are commonly found in the wet fand, on the edges 

 of the fhore, and not abfolutely in the water. They are gene- 

 rally dug up with a fpade, and made ufe of as a bait to catch 

 other Fifh, but other wife are not regarded in thefe parts. In 



* This, tho' called a horn, is truly a tooth of this Fifh, of a fingular ftru&ure. 



the 



