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Icelanders Capturing Narwhals
much that they paralyze each other's ing it to smoke. The oil furnished by the movements; they become entangled in Narwhal is, it is said, preferable to that the tusks of those near them, or else, of the whale. The name this animal lifting their heads in the air, they rest bears was given to it by the Icelanders. their tusks on the backs of those which The meaning of the word is, "Whale are in front of them. They can from that that feeds on dead bodies;" for the minute neither retreat, nor advance, nor word in their language meansfight, and they fall under the blows of the dead body or carcass, and the word whal sailors, who are in the boats. whale. nar Naturalists are not agreed as to the use warlike. Scoresby saw some very merry of the Narwhal's formidable weapon. bands of these marine animals; they They say that they use it in their attacks raised their horns and crossed them, as if on the whale, and that they kill this mon- they were going to fence, and they folster by running their sword into its belly. lowed the ship with a sort of wild curi- Lacépède says that their tusks have been osity. The ivory of the Narwhal's tusk found deeply implanted in the bodies of is an object of value; it is more compact, whales; but other authors formally deny harder, and susceptible of a finer polish that battles ever take place between these than that of the elephant. It is on this two terrible combatants. Narwhals some- account that visitors to the library of Vertimes rush with prodigious speed and sailles are shown a walking-stick made of force against vessels, which they no Narwhal ivory inlaid with mother-of-pearl. doubt take for some gigantic prey. If Of this ivory is made an ancient throne of the animal attack the ship on the side as the kings of Denmark, which is to be seen it is sailing, the tooth, imbedded in the in the Castle of Rosenberg. wood, breaks off; but if it attack it from A most excellent observer remarks that behind, the Narwhal remains fixed to the ship; it is then dragged along and towed till it dies.
A Terrible Weapon. the Narwhal is gregarious, generally travelling in great herds. I have seen, he relates, a herd of many thousands travelling north in their summer migrations, Certain naturalists, relying on the fact tusk to tusk and tail to tail, like a regithat the Narwhal's tusk is smooth towards ment of cavalry, so regularly did they the end, which is sometimes rounded, and, rise and sink into the water in their unas it were, worn away, have concluded dulatory movements in swimming. It is that the animal uses its horn for piercing very active, and will often dive with the ice, when it wants to come up and breathe rapidity of the right-whale, taking out and to save itself a long journey to the thirty or forty fathoms of line. These open water. Others have thought that schools are not all of one sex, but consist these traces of wear and tear of its weapon of males and females mixed. The use of arise from the friction of it in sand or the tusk has long been a matter of disagainst rocks, when the animal is looking pute: it has been supposed to use it to there for its food, which consists of cuttle- stir up its food from the bottom; but if fish, flat-fish, cod, ray, oysters, and other such were the case, the females would be mollusks. And, lastly, it has been stated sadly at a loss. They seem to fight with that the Narwhal uses its natural lance them; for it is rarely that an unbroken for attacking its prey, for killing it, and one is obtained, and occasionally one may perhaps also for tearing it up before it be found with the point of another devours it. Thus the Narwhal's tooth jammed into the broken place, where the would seem to be at the same time an in- tusk is young enough to be hollow, or strument which serves to satisfy the wants of the ordinary life of the animal, useful to it for its respiration, its nutrition, and, at the same time, an offensive and defensive weapon.
Narwhals are not always brutal and entirely lost close to the skull.
A Greenlander's Discovery.
Fabricus thought that these horns were to keep the holes open in the ice during the winter; and the following occurrence seems to support his view: In April, 1860, a Greenlander was travelling along the their heads to breathe, no other open spot ice in the vicinity of Christianshaab, and presenting itself for miles around. It was discovered one of those open places in described as akin to an Arctic Black Hole
