BRITISH MAMMALS 
ground, forming semi-circular figures on each lobe. . . . The colour of the 
sucklings is almost wholly a bluish-grey or slate-colour. . . . 
" The principal food of the Narwhal seems to be molluscous animals. 
In the stomachs of several that I have examined were numerous remains of 
sepiae. 
" Narwhals are quick, active, inoffensive animals. They swim with 
considerable velocity. When respiring at the surface, they frequently lie 
motionless for several minutes, with their backs and heads just appearing 
above water. They are of a somewhat gregarious disposition, often appear- 
ing in numerous little herds of half a dozen, or more, together. Each herd 
is most frequently composed of animals of the same sex." 
According to Mr. W. G. Burn Murdoch [Modern Whaling and Hear 
Hunting, p. 237) Narwhals utter at times a groaning sound. 
This species keeps chiefly to the ice in the Arctic seas, and only on 
very rare occasions has visited the British coasts. 
The first is recorded from the Firth of Forth, where one was taken near 
the Isle of May as far back as 1648. The next was stranded alive near 
Boston, Lincolnshire, in 1800, and another was driven ashore in Weisdale 
Sound, Shetland, in September 1808. 
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