8 
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
SCATTERED OBSERVATIONS ON NARWHALS 
By Dr. Morten P. Porsild 
[Plate 1] 
A peculiarity of ice conditions in Disko Bay, on the west coast of 
Greenland, is that the ice instead of first freezing over the bay at the 
heads of the fiords on the approach of winter and gradually spreading 
seaward, first forms late in December, when the drifting ice of Baffin 
Bay approaches the coast. The weather then becomes quiet, with 
intense cold, and ice rapidly spreads over Disko Bay from the islands 
near its opening inward toward its head. 
^^Then it often happens,” to quote my article explaining the cir- 
cumstances in the Geographical Review (vol. 6, pp 215-228, September, 
1918), ^Hhat schools of white narwhals are cut off from the still open 
parts of Baffin Bay, and are gradually driven in towards the head of 
Disko Bay. Freezing continues, and finally the schools are restricted 
to the last smaller or larger open spaces in the ice, whence they cannot 
escape unless the weather changes and the ice is broken.” Their 
presence there will be betrayed by a column of white vapor of their 
breath, condensed in the extremely cold air; and the Eskimos flock to 
the place from far and near to kill and capture the animals, which are 
valuable to them in many ways. Such a pool of trapped whales is 
called by the Greenlanders a savssat (pronounced s’set), a word used 
of living animals crowded into a small space. It ordinarily happens, 
however, that these pools themselves soon freeze over, and then the 
imprisoned animals are compelled to break breathing-holes through 
the ice, and keep them open, in order to get air. It has been my 
fortune to see several of these savssats, and to witness the slaughter 
and capture of the whales; and it is from such experiences that I have 
derived the information given below as to some features of narwhal 
life and anatomy. 
So far as I know, it has not been previously recorded that various 
species of arctic whales are able intentionally to break holes through 
the ice for breathing. At the first savssat I visited the holes in the 
morning were from a few to several feet long and from one to three 
feet broad; by lengthening and merging into each other, the first holes 
broken developed to cracks. The holes are broken by blows with the 
thick and firm cushion on the upper side of the head, in front of the 
so-called ^‘blowing-hole,” or exit of the nostrils. The Eskimos at 
