HALICORE. 63 



Genus I. HALICORE, Illiger (1811). 



Incisors in the male large, tusk-like, with bevelled off cutting 

 edges, and the roots provided with persistent pulp cavities ; in 

 the female not penetrating the gum. Not more than three molars 

 in each ranius in use simultaneously. Limbs without nails. Tail 

 fin lunate. Head in front of the eyes bent abruptly downwards. 



Vertebras. C. 7, 1). 15 - 18, L. & C. 30 = 52-55. 

 Dentition. 1. f , C. |j, P. 5, M. |^| x 2 = 22 to 26. 



1. HALICORE DUGONG, Gmelin, sp. (1788). 

 Dugong. 



Skin thick and smooth with a few scattered hairs ; upper lip 

 large, its lower edge obliquely truncated, tuberculated, and bristly. 

 Flippers short, thick, and fleshy. Colors, above slaty- or brownish- 

 black, below lighter. 



Habitat. Northern Australia, descending on the eastern coast 

 as far south as Moreton Bay; from New Guinea through Malaysia 

 and along the southern shores of Asia to the Red Sea ; East coast 

 of Africa, and Mauritius. 



Dimensions. Total length up to eight feet. 



References. Gray, B.M. Catal. Seals and Whales,p. 261; Scott, 

 Seals and Whales, p. 52. 



Note. For many years the idea was prevalent that the Dugongs 

 were able to come on shore at will for the purpose of browsing on 

 grasses and other terrestrial plants ; but a cursory examination of 

 the weakness of the fore-limbs, coupled with the total absence of 

 even the internal rudiments of hind limbs, should have been 

 sufficient to have at once dispelled a view so incompatible with 

 the structure of the animal. By some the flesh is said to be excel- 

 lent, while others maintain that it is almost inedible, a difference 

 for which it is easy to account if the sex and age of the individual 

 eaten be taken into consideration, or perhaps, though hardly likely 

 with a class of animals whose diet is necessarily so restricted, to 

 the nature of food consumed. There is, however, no such diversity 

 of opinion as to the excellent quality of the oil expressed from 

 the subcuticular fat of the Dugong, which is with one accord pro- 

 nounced to be pure, clear, free from disagreeable odor, and further 

 more, when properly prepared, to possess many, if not all, of the 

 remedial properties of cod-liver oil. Dugongs are much more 

 strictly marine than Manatees, and their food is therefore chiefly 

 restricted to sea-water algte. 



These animals have been by some systematists divided into three 

 species, (the basis, apparently, of this opinion being mainly the 

 difference of locality) namely, H. tabernaculi from African, H. 



