82 
MAMMALIA. 
Eskimo and Danes resorted thither with their Dogs and sledges 
and while one shot the animal, another harpooned it, to prevent it 
being pushed aside by the anxious crowd of brethren. Dozens of 
both Narwhals and Belugas were killed, but many were lost before 
they were brought home, the ice breaking up soon after. In the 
ensuing summer the natives found many dead washed up in the 
bays and inlets around. Fabricius describes a similar scene. 
Neither the Narwhal nor the Beluga are timid animals, but will 
approach close to, and gambol for hours in the immediate vicinity 
of a ship/’ 
In the female of the Narwhal the tusks are rudimentary, but 
exist within the intermaxillary bone, each about ten inches long, 
rough, and with no inclination to spire ; “ in fact,” remarks Mr. 
Brown, “not unlike a miniature piece of pig-iron. On the 
other hand, the undeveloped tusk in the male is smooth and 
tapering, and wrinkled longitudinally. Double-tusked Narwhals 
are not uncommon. I have seen them swimming about among 
the herd, and several such skulls have been preserved. The 
colour of the animal is greyish, or velvet-black, with white spots, 
sometimes roundish, but more frequently irregular blotches of no 
certain outline, running into one another. There are no spots on 
the tail or flippers, but waxy-like streaks shade off on each side 
at the junction of the tail, which is white at the line of inden- 
tation. The female is more spotted than the male. The young 
is, again, much darker ; and individuals have been seen which were 
almost white, like the one Anderson describes as having come 
ashore at the mouth of the Elbe. In a female killed at Pond’s 
Bay, in August, 1861, the stomach was corrugated in complicated 
folds, as were also the small intestines. It contained Crustaceans, 
bones of Fishes, and an immense quantity of the horny mandibles 
of some species of Cuttle (probably, Sepia loligo) firmly packed 
one within the other.”* The Narwhal is chiefly an inhabitant of 
the polar regions, and very rarely strays to temperate latitudes ; 
still fossil remains of it have been found both in England and 
France. A male taken entangled among the rocks at the entrance 
to the sound of Weesdale, in Zetland, on the 27th of September, 
1808, measured twelve feet, exclusive of the tusk. 
The Beluga (. Beluga catodon), or “White Whale” of British 
* Proceedings of the Zoological Society , 1868, p. 552. 
