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THE NARWHAL : 127

even fresh-water. The fresh-water dolphins, properly
so called, are assigned, however, to the family called
after Platanista, the generic name of the blind dolphin
of the Ganges. To the naturalist there is much
interest in these fresh-water forms, owing to Sir
William Flower’s suggestion that in their transition
from terrestrial to marine life, the cetaceans may have
passed through a stage in which they lived on river
banks and in rivers, fog which they afterwards mi-
grated to the sea.

Belonging to this dolphin-like group is the white
whale, often over sixteen feet long, almost pure
white in colour, and without a back-fin. Resembling
it in everything but its teeth, is the narwhal, or
sea unicorn. This extraordinary animal has only two
teeth worth noticing, both of which are in the upper

_ jaw. Occasionally both of these grow out like tusks,

but as a rule the one on the right side remains in a
rudimentary state, as both do in the case of the
females, and the other runs out straight for six feet or
so. What the narwhal does with his horn is not very
clear. Some travellers tell us that he uses it asa fork
to skewer up the flat-fish from the bottom of the sea ;
never, however, does he seem to have been caught in
the act ; and though his portraits are many, we have
not yet come across an unfortunate turbot spitted like
cat’s-meat on his tapering tooth ; nor is it clear how
the female would get on unless her mate fed her with
the fork. Others relate how it is used as a gimlet for
boring blow-holes in the ice, but the statement is not
made from personal observation. Others describe it
as a weapon of offence and defence, used much as