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Show 1871.] MR. J. W. CLARK ON THE NARWHAL. 51 5. Weimar.-In Froriep's Museum. The left tusk is fully developed, the right projects only a few inches beyond the skull. Figured by Albers*. Its authenticity has been questioned by Dr. Jager ; and undoubtedly the fact of the right tooth being so small renders it very necessary to examine the skull most carefully. 6. Hull.-In the Museum of the Philosophical Society. Procured in 1838 from a whaler. It is of a young animal, the left tusk measuring 20", the right |", exclusive of the portion within the skull f. 7. Paris.-A young skeleton recently sent from Copenhagen, where it had been preserved for some years in the Museum stores. The longest tusk projects 2_', the shorter one only a few inches. Besides these, three others have been mentioned. 1. A skull sent down from Greenland in salt, and exhibited at Amsterdam in the 17th century. This fact rests on the authority of Zorgdragerj, who says the longest tusk measured 6', the shorter, which was broken, 1'. 2. Leuckart § saw a bidental skull at Vienna in 1841. The tusk on the right side was two-thirds shorter than that on the left. The spiral was sinistrorsal. This skull was certainly not there when I examined the collection in 1868. Possibly it was destroyed in the fire of 1848, which did great damage to the Museum. 3. Sowerby || mentions that a Narwhal came ashore at Friestone, in Boston Deeps, Feb. 15, 1800. He remarks, "it perfectly agreed with the name given by Linnaeus, in having but one tooth, looking like a horn ; but on examining the upper jaw, it was very evident that the other tooth had been lost; and we have since seen a perfect skeleton of the head of this animal with the two teeth fixed in their proper sockets." Unfortunately he gives no further particulars ; so that one cannot judge whether his opinion was justified by the appearance of the skull, or rests merely on his own notions of symmetrical propriety. It has been argued, by Rapp in the first instance, and by others since, that these bidental skulls are all forgeries. It might doubtless be possible to hollow out the right side of the skull in such a way as to admit of the insertion of a smaller tooth ; and consequently those skulls where one tusk is much smaller than the other ought * Icones ad Anatomen comparatam illustrandam. It has been shown by both Vrolik and Jager that Albers was wrong in citing nine other cases of bidental skulls. One only of his is truly bidental, No. 5, the Hamburg specimen. Nos. 1, 2, 6, and 7 are probably other figures of it; No. 3 is the Stuttgart specimen described by Reisel; No. 4 is that at Copenhagen, described by Tychonius; Nos. 8 and 9 are those figured by Sir E. Home. His error arose from regarding the undeveloped tooth on the right side as something abnormal, and as a genuine second tusk. f These particulars have been most obligingly communicated to me by Mr. R. Harrison, Curator of the Museum. | Zorgdrager, p. 33. § F. S. Leuckart, ' Zoologische Bruchstucke,' Stuttgart, 1841, p. 48. I owe this reference to Vrolik, p. 22, /. c. || Brit. Miscellany, Lond. 1806, p. 17, tab. ix. |
