THE MANATEE. 



447 



prey. Its color is grayish-black upon the back, and white on the abdomen. The eye is wonder- 

 fully small, being only one-eighth of an inch in diameter in a Soosoo which measures four or 

 five feet in length. There is no dorsal fin, its place being indicated by a small projection. 



SIREN I A. 



MANATEES AND DUGONGS. 



THE small but singular group of animals that are classed together under the title of the 

 SIRENIA, are so formed that anatomists have had much difficulty in deciding upon their proper 

 position in the animal kingdom. Many parts of their structure exhibit so strong an affinity to 



MANATEE. Manatus americanvi. 



the pachydermata, or thick-skinned mammalia, that they have been placed next to the 

 elephants by some zoologists, while their fish-like form and aquatic habits have induced other 

 writers to place them in the position which they now occupy in the British Museum. They 

 feed chiefly on vegetable substances, and find the greater part of their subsistence in the thick 

 herbage that edges the waters where they reside. Their nostrils are placed at the extremity of 

 the muzzle, as is the case with most mammalia, and they are never employed as blow-holes, 

 after the manner of the cetaceans. 



THE MANATEE, or LAMANTINE, is a very strange-looking creature, appearing like a curious 

 mixture of several dissimilar animals, the seal and hippopotamus being predominant. 



There are several species of Manatee, two of which are found in America and one in Africa, 

 but always on those shores which are washed by the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The com- 

 mon Manatee is generally about nine or ten feet in length, and is remarkable for the thick 

 fleshy disc which terminates the muzzle, and in which the nostrils are placed. It is found in 

 some plenty at the mouths of sundry large rivers, such as the Orinoko or the Amazon, and 

 feeds upon the algse and other herbage which grows so plentifully in those regions. By some 



