Historic Narwhal Tusks

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HISTORIC NARWHAL

TUSKS.

HISTORIC NARWHAL TUSKS.

BY DUDLEY W .

COLLINGS, M . B . ,

M.R.C.S.

THE family Delphinidae, comprising the aquatic mammals known as Dolphins and Porpoises, includes one species of considerable interest : the Narwhal (Monodon monocerus, Linn.).

This animal, which attains a length of just about fifteen feet, is now essentially arctic in its distribution but, on rare occasions, still strays to our shores. There are only three British records one in 1648 in the Firth of FĂśrth, one near Boston in Lines in 1800, and one somewhere in Scotland in 1808. However, formerly it was doubtless more abundant with us, for in 1846 Owen figured in " British Fossil Mammals," p. 521, a fragmentarv tusk from the Essex coast, probably in London Clay of the early Eocene epoch ; and since then remains of the Narwhal have been found in the so-called Forest Bed of Norfolk, which was formed in early Pleistocene times.

T h e female of the species, except for a few rudimentary teeth, is edentulous ; but the male is characterised by the presence in the left side of the upper jaw of a single, spirally twisted, elongate horn, actually the incisor-tooth entirely analogous with Elephants' tusks. Very occasionally the right tusk also is developed, but this is never known to be present alone. The Narwhal horn is the sole spiral tooth in the world, and its twist is always left-handed, whether the tusk be right or left. Males may fight with such weapons, as stags in the rutting season, and they have been seen crossed ; or, it has been thought, the tusk is a possible ice-breaker. T h e details of a typical tusk are :—Total length 55 f inches, having had a short portion of extreme base sawn off; greatest girth 5f in. ; pulp cavity conical and 12 in. in length ; the apical three in. are straight and ungrooved ; a cross-section shows 12 convex ridges and there are 4 | complete turns in the remaining 52 in., i.e. one turn in each I I I in. ; the tooth is composed entirely of ivory, and has no coating of enamel. Always the whole skull is curiously asymmetrical, and has the nostril-bones twisted well to the left.

Considering the Narwhal's present rarity, even in arctic seas, a comparatively large number of tusks have come to light in Suffolk during the current year. Two speeimens, over the entrance-door of Ipswich Museum, are respectively fifty-four and seventy-five and a half inches in length: unfortunately their history is unknown. Another, broken and now about forty-two inches long, is preserved in Bury Museum and was exhibited to our Society in May last: no data are available.

HISTORIC NARWHAL TUSKS.

53

A tusk, 551 in. long as described above, is in private possession at Blythburgh. An Ipswich antique-dealer is stated to have had for nine years two others, sold in April 1932 to a forgotten customer. Edward Goodliffe of Park-farm in Braiseworth teils us that he and his grandparents before him knew one of these tusks, hardly over three feet long, that apparently still exists in the " Temple " museum of Lord Exeter's house at Burghleigh in Lines. : the speeimen is, of course, associated with Queen Elizabeths Burghleigh who was buried in St. Martin's at Stamford, and not with the Boston Narwhal of 1800. Several such horns are alleged to have been recently put up to auetion in London, and to have been brought from aretie seas, where they were discovered embedded solum in ice ; but metropolitan Naturalistdealers know nothing of this sale.

Two Narwhal tusks, that formed the posts of a bed, are preserved by our Member, Redmond Buxton esquire at Fritton Hall and were shown the Society last June. Mr. Hubert Buxton teils us (in lit. 16 Feb. 1932) that this bed was brought to Fritton by their mother about 1884 upon the death of her father, the Revd.

Abbott Upcher (who was born about 1800 in Sheringham Hall and lived all his life in Norfolk) from his rectory at Kirby Cane near Bungay. Ernest R. Gribble of 4 Gippeswyk Avenue in Ipswich has kindly sent the annexed photograph of these posts, with the following information: Constructed between 1775 and 1800 ; the bases are 30 in. in length, of squared mahogany veneered with West Indian satinwood and decorated with a line of black inlay ; above each is a mahogany circle, 2f in. in height, forming a socket for the tusks, which themselves are 68f in. in height, 2 | in. in diameter at the base, and 1J in. at the upper end, the apex itself having been sawn off to fit into the bed-canopy that has been since lost. Of the earlier history of this nice pair, there is no record unfortunately.

No doubt can exist that, either in the course of legitimate trade abroad or from loot obtained when freebooting, an occasional Narwhal's tusk found its way to England in mediaeval times ; and the reference of such tusks to the fabled Unicorn was most natural to a folk whose knowledge of the mammalia was so slight.* ,,

quasi-savant has gravely averred, within the Century too, that the Unicorn still exists in the interior of Thibet : it ». here called the nc-horned Thopo.

Its hörn, which is curved, grows out o. ' s forehead ; are d i v i d e d its t a i l is tw 1° shaped like that of a boar ; it is about • e . v e o r thirteen hands high, extremely wild and fierce, yet associating in large herds. It is seldom caught alive, but the Tartars frequently 11 a n d use its flesh for food " (Wonders of the World in N a t u r e p , . ' P- 455). What is this remarkable ungulate of Wallace's I n d o v-ninese district of the Oriental Region ?—Ed.

NARWHAL

TUSKS.

54

HISTORIC

NARWHAL

TUSKS.

I n M a y of the present year, our Society was invited to Hengrave H a l l near Bury, where our Member, Sir John Wood, showed a Narwhal's horn as one of his most jealously preserved possessions.

I n its present condition, it is eight in. in girth at the base by just seven and a half feet long, showing no indication of fangs but so levelly truncated as to suggest exact reduction to the present length. I t is kept in a peculiar wooden case and bears an old parchment label, inscribed " H o r n of Narwal.

Bequeathed in 1561 by the Countess of Bath to her daughter Kytson." As far as is known, the history of the tusk seems thus :— Late in the fifteenth Century there lived at Warton i n Lancs. a certain Robert Kytson, who apparently was not armigerous.

D ü r i n g 1485 a son, Thomas, was born to h i m ; the latter became a trader and member of the Merchant Adventurers Company, w i t h vessels of his own plying to Antwerp and probably much more distant ports (Suff. Inst, i, 332). He became Sheriff of London i n 1533, before which year he had been knighted ; and in 1540 he died. He had a son, also Sir Thomas, who died in 1602. T h e eider Thomas left a widow, Margaret, who later became Countess of Bath and i n 1561 bequeathed to her daughter Kytson—Dame Elizabeth, her daughter-in-law, wife of the younger Sir T h o m a s — " her caskanet of pearls, w i t h the flower of diamond hanging upon the same lace, and also her unicorns b o n e " ( W i l l : Gage's " H e n g r a v e " in extenso).

N o w , it is interesting to note that in 1527 a grant of Arms was made to Sir Thomas Kytson the eider (Grant penes Hengrave Hall), including the crest of A U N I C O R N S H E A D COUPED : w h i c h crest may still be seen, though renewed, in Hengrave church where it supports the effigies of both Sir Thomas the Merchant and his son.

I t is certainly possible, and rather probable, that the historic Narwhal's horn of Hengrave, among the finest examples now extant, was brought to England from the northland by one of Sir Thomas Kytson's trading vessels, and that its possession supplied the subject of his crest in 1527. A n unlikely alternative has been suggested to me : Family lares et penates were far more venerated and heirloomed in mediaeval England than is now the case ; so we w i l l not ignore the fact that the manorial L o r d of Hengrave in 1373 was appointed by the Crown " Custodian of the Shores of S u f f o l k " (Gage), w i t h perquisites whose peculiarities w o u l d need a lawyer to determine. Further, very similar marine association arises from Sir Thomas de Hemegrave, the ancestor of that Custodian's gift from the Crown of M u t f o r d H u n d r e d during 1234 (Test. Nevill). Hence, if Suffolcian at all, our tusk may be seven hundred, or merely four hundred, years old.