ARCTIC BLACK BOLE OF CALCUTTA . 
141 
pute; it has been supposed' by some that it stirs up 
its food from the bottom, but in such a case the 
female would be sadly at a loss for want of a similar 
appliance, though a recently described New Zealand 
bird seems just a case in point; for here we also find 
the male bird is furnished with a long and sharply 
curved beak, while the female of the same species is 
known to have a very much shorter bill, and there is 
no reason to believe that their food is different. 
These narwhals are pugnacious one with another, 
often it happens that the tooth gets broken, and in 
savage encounters the point of one opponent’s tooth 
has been found embedded in the broken piece of the 
other. Fabricius thought its use was to keep the holes 
open in the ice during the winter; and the following 
occurrence seems to support this view. In April 1860, 
a Greenlander was travelling along the ice in the 
vicinity of Christianshaab, and discovered one of these 
open spaces in the ice, which, even in the most severe 
winters, remain open. In this hole hundreds of nar¬ 
whals and white whales were protruding their heads to 
breathe, no other place presenting itself for miles 
around. It was described to Dr. E. Brown as akin to 
the Arctic Black Hole of Calcutta, in the eagerness of 
the animals to keep at the place. Hundreds of Eskimo 
and Danes resorted thither with their dogs and sledges. 
