I36 DESCRIPTION OF A NARWAL. 



and tapered from the external base to the point, 

 which was blunt and solid. The portion of the 

 tooth concealed in the skull was cylindrical and 

 hollow. The tooth of the Narwal found at Boston, 

 was equal to one -third of the length of the animal ; 

 in this specimen, it was little more than one-fifth. 



There is the figure of the head of a Narwal of 

 this kind, given by La Cepede, (Plate ix. fig. 1.), 

 in which there are two teeth of equal length. 

 Occasionally, in the young narwals, but rarely in 

 the old ones, two teeth have been found, the one 

 tooth in general considerably smaller than the 

 other. When these animals become old, they 

 seldom possess more than one tooth, and have no 

 external appearance of another on the other side 

 of the lip, so that it is probable one of the teeth 

 falls out when the animal is of a certain age, the 

 skin then uniting and covering the socket. 



La Cepede supposes that the teeth of the ani- 

 mal are often broken, when combating with masses 

 of ice in which it gets entangled ; by its battles 

 with other whales, or by its striking at the planks 

 of vessels : and in this fanciful manner, he seems to 

 account for the general absence of one of the teeth 

 in the older animals 



* If the account of the manners of the Narwal, given us 

 by Egede in his Description of Greenland, deserves any 

 credit, we ought perhaps to be surprised at the exis- 

 tence of any tooth at all in the head of that animal. " Fur- 

 " thermore, (says the Greenland Missionary), this horn 



