624 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and the stomach of our dead friend contained an immense quantity of 

 vegetation cropped during the night from the bottom of the sea. It 

 was the most curious example of a ruminating (herbivorous ?) mam- 

 mal I had ever seen. The skin was bare and slightly wrinkled, though 

 at a distance it appeared to be quite smooth." 



The dugong's nostrils are displayed upward ; its lips have a horny 

 edging which assists it in tearing sea- weeds from the bottom ; and the 

 forward part of its snout is covered with soft papillae and a few stiff 

 bristles. It often comes to the surface to breathe, and utters a pecul- 

 iar cry, which our English writer, who heard it, describes as " a plain- 

 tive appeal, as if a child half awakened had softly moaned, and turned 

 over to sleep again. I looked around," he adds, " in time to see a 

 clumsy, grayish-brown head silently thrust above the surface, and, 

 without leaving a sign, as silently disappear." 



This animal has become the object of a thriving industry, the chief 

 seat of which is at Moreton Bay, Queensland. Every part of the 

 creature is marketable, and the pursuit and capture are easy and safe 

 too much so, probably, for the permanence of the trade. The flesh is 

 eatable as beef, veal, or bacon, either of which it may be made to re- 

 semble ; the head can be cooked into a delicious brawn ; the flippers, 

 a good deal boiled, make capital soup ; the bones are dense, close- 

 grained, and capable of taking a high polish, hence adaptable to a 

 variety of uses ; the ivory tusks are in request for knife-handles ; the 

 skin is good to make a jelly "as acceptable and beneficial to invalids 

 as calf's-foot," and for leather ; and the fat is rendered at Moreton 

 Bay into a palatable and wholesome oil. 



The dugong-hunting season at Moreton Bay, where the animals are 

 supposed to resort from tropical seas to give birth to their young, lasts 

 through the winter weather. The submarine pastures upon which 

 they feed, says a writer in the " Gentleman's Magazine," " lie at a 

 depth of from eight to fourteen feet, and the favorite grounds are 

 banks protected from the sea, in bays and straits. They graze in com- 

 pany, and feed down the herbage so close that they leave a well-de- 

 fined track to indicate their movements. The black fellows, who love 

 occupation of this kind, if any, peer over the gunwale of the whale- 

 boat into the clear water, and are unerring authorities, telling at once 

 when the monsters passed that way though it were a week previously, 

 and giving a shrewd guess as to their present whereabout." The 

 animals are then tracked up, and strong nets, presenting a w T all speci- 

 fied in one instance as fourteen feet high and a hundred and fifty yards 

 long, are placed so as to intercept them as they go browsing up to 

 their feeding-grounds. The dugong, in happy innocence, eats greedily 

 of the succulent growths, clearing its way in the most workmanlike 

 manner, when it is suddenly stopped by this strange barrier. Being 

 a remarkably timid creature, it takes fright, loses its presence of mind, 

 and gets hopelessly entangled. " Now and then a dugong is found 



