THE SIRENS OF THE SEA. 



623 



v v . 



Fig. 2. Dugong. 



and are actively pursued by the Indians. The largest and best-known 

 species is the Florida manatee, which inhabits the Gulf of Mexico and 

 West Indian waters ; the South American species is smaller, and the 

 African the smallest of all. 



The dugong is the congener of the manatee in the Indian Ocean 

 and the Australasian waters. 

 It is as large as the manatee, 

 and visibly different. Its 

 head is small in proportion 

 to the body, and is separated 

 from it by a slight but dis- 

 tinct cervical depression ; its 

 skull is short, and its snout 

 terminates abruptly in a 

 large, thick upper lip, look- 

 ing " something like the 

 trunk of the elephant cut 

 short across"; its tail, hori- 

 zontally flattened, like that 

 of the manatee, is forked or 

 crescent-shaped, instead of being entire, as with its congener; and its 

 flippers are destitute of any traces of nails. The eyes are small, and 

 are furnished with a third eyelid or nictitating membrane. For the 

 rest, we let an English writer, who examined one of the animals at 

 the hunting-grounds in Moreton Bay, Australia, describe him : 



" Now I could understand," he says, " why one person had told me 

 the dugong was like a whale ; another, that it resembled a seal ; a 

 third, that it was not unlike a porpoise. The animal was in some sense 

 a reminder of them all, but really not to be compared with either. It was, 

 perhaps, likest a seal of elephantine proportions ; and a baby dugong 

 that had been taken from one of the prizes over which the carrion- 

 birds were fighting and squabbling, and that had been kept for dis- 

 patch in spirits to England, would very well pass for a member of the 

 seal family. A tour round the mature specimen had to be twice re- 

 peated before I could see my w r ay to a clear comprehension of its 

 ' points.' Its dull-brown body was like a large cylinder, tapering off 

 toward the head and great paddle-shaped tail. Ears there were none 

 to speak of. The eyes were tiny, and three parts buried. The two 

 flippers, considering the size of the animal, were remarkably small. 

 The most prominent feature was the head, which terminated in a solid, 

 square-cut upper lip, that warranted its comparison with a bullock. 

 Being a female dugong, there were neither teeth nor tusks in the upper 

 jaw, but a couple of small tusks of good ivory had been that morning 

 taken from one of the bulls already operated upon. The inside of the 

 mouth was lined with a rough apparatus, like a worn-down scrubbing- 

 brush. The dugong, in short, is a vegetarian of the strictest order ; 



