314 Hijlory ^ANIMALS, 
* * . * . * - f ‘ 
Balcena fijlula duplici in fronte , maxilla inferiore multo latiore . 
3 ^ Bailtzna, with a double jiflule in the forehead , and with the lower 
jaw broadejl . 
This is a confiderably large fpecies; it has been met with thrown on fhore on our 
own coafts, of feventy-eight feet long: the head is remarkably large, and of an irre¬ 
gular figure, having feveral depreffions on it: the opening of the mouth is very wide; 
the upper jaw is furnifhed with the horny laminae in confiderable abundance, in the 
place of teeth; the lower jaw has none of them : the lower jaw is vaflly broader than 
the upper, and-hands all the way prominent beyond it: the eyes are fmall, and are 11- 
tuated high on the head, at a confiderable diftance from one another; the fiftule is of a 
pyramidal figure, and is divided into two parts by a feptum : the body is thick ; the 
back is elevated; the belly is fomewhat flatted, and the tail is very large and move¬ 
able with a furprizing force. 
It is a native of the moil: Northern Seas, but it is fometimes alfo thrown up on our 
fhores, efpeeially in the moft northern parts of Scotland. Sibbald, who had met with 
it there, calls it Balasna tripinnis maxilla inferiore rotunda et fuperiore multum latiore * 
Ray alfo has borrowed the fame name. 
M O N O D O N. 
r T^ H E Monodon has only one tooth ; this is remarkably long, and is fixed in the 
JL u PP er jaw, runs parallel with the length of the fifh, fo that it has more 
the appearance of a horn than a tooth. There is no fin upon the back, and the fif- 
tule is in the vertex, or uppermofl part of the head. 
Of this fingular genus there is but one known fpecies. 
Monodon. 
This is an extreamly fingular fifh ; the length of a full-grown one is about five and 
twenty feet, but from fixteen to twenty is more common: the body is extreamly 
thick; it’s diameter equals at leaf!; half it’s length, and it is very unwieldy : the head 
is fmall, and is fihaped like that of a roach or carp : the mouth is very fmall, and 
there are no teeth in either jaw, except the fingular one, called a horn in the upper ; 
this grows from the left fide of the jaw, and is protended forward. It is fixed 
in a gomphofis in the jaw, altogether in the manner of other teeth, whence, and 
from it’s ftru&ure, appears the impropriety of calling it a horn. This tooth grows to 
ten feet, or more, in length; it is about the thicknefs of a man’s wrift toward the 
bafe, and thence becomes gradually fmaller all the way to the point: it is a little flat¬ 
ted, where it is let into the jaw; in the other part it is rounded: it is of a bony tex¬ 
ture, and of a fine ivory white colour : the furface is wreathed in a very elegant, fpi- 
ral manner, and the tooth is hollow almofl: all the way up. The eyes of this fpecies are 
very lmall, and ftand at a great diflance from one another; the fiftule Hands very 
high up in the head, and is large; the whole body is covered with a very tough Ikin: 
, the back is greatly elevated; the fides very prominent and rounded, and the belly 
fomewhat flatted : the tail is horizontal and very large, and is a little divided in the 
middle. 
This fingular fifh is frequent in the Northern Seas, and fometimes comes as far to¬ 
wards us as Denmark and Sweden, but rarely ; the people employed in the whale 
fifbery frequently kill it, and procure oil, &c. from it, as from the common whale. 
One of thefe people brought the fkeleton of one to London, about two years fince, and 
fliewed.it for money, under the name of an unicorn. I had an opportunity of exa¬ 
mining the tooth in this to great advantage, and found it to be abfolutely and entirely 
fuch, with no title to the name of a horn at all. 
This fingular fifh was not known to the antients, nor well, indeed, to any, till fince 
the efiablifhment of the Greenland whale-fifhery. Charleton calls it Monoceros, uni¬ 
cornu marinum ; Ray, Monoceros pifcis de genere cetaceo ; and Willughby, Monoce¬ 
ros pifcis- qui de genere cetaceo efie fertur. The tooth of this fifh was known among 
the collectors of curiofities, long before the fifh itfelf was fo. When the creature had 
been 
