WHALES AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. 247 



shape and aspect. Its creamy, white skin is certainly a peculiar fea- 

 ture ; but the broad, horizontal tail-fin is well exemplified in this 

 northern stranger, while the breathing habits of its group may also be 

 studied superficially but satisfactorily on the specimen in question. 

 The beluga inhabits the North American coast, at the mouths of the 

 rivers on the Labrador and Hudson's Bay coast, while it is known to 

 penetrate even to the Arctic regions. These whales are plentiful in 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence in spring and summer, and appear to mi- 

 grate to the west coast of Greenland in October and November. The 

 Esquimaux regard the beluga as their special prize, and contrive, with 

 the aptitude for design which the necessities of savage existence teach, 

 to utilize wellnigh every portion of its frame, even to the manufacture 

 of a kind of animal-glass from its dried and transparent internal mem- 

 branes. 



But little space remains in which to treat of certain near relations 

 and somewhat interesting allies of the whales. Such are the Manatees, 

 or " sea-cows," and the Dugongs, collectively named Sirenia, in the 

 category of zoologists. The origin of this latter name is attended with 

 some degree of interest. It has been bestowed on these animals from 

 their habit of assuming an upright or semi-erect posture in the water; 

 their appearance in this position, and especially when viewed from a 

 distance by the imaginative nautical mind, having doubtless laid a 

 foundation, in fact, for the tales of " sirens " and " mermaids " anxious 

 to lure sailors to destruction by their amatory numbers. Any one who 

 has watched the countenance of a seal from a short distance must have 

 been struck with the close resemblance to the human face which the 

 countenance of these animals presents. Such a likeness is seen even to 

 a greater degree in the sea-cows, which also possess the habit of fold- 

 ing their " flippers," or swimming-paddles, across their chests, and, it 

 is said, of holding the young to the breast in the act of nutrition by 

 aid of the paddle-like fore-limbs. If I mistake not, Captain Sowerby 

 mentions, in an account of his voyages, that the surgeon of the ship 

 on one occasion came to him in a state of excitement to announce that 

 he had seen a man swimming in the water close at hand; the supposed 

 human being proving to be a manatee, which had been, doubtless, 

 merely exercising a natural curiosity regarding the ship and its ten- 

 ants. 



These animals are near relatives of the whales, but differ from 

 them, not merely in habits, but in bodily structure and conformation. 

 They live an estuarine existence, rarely venturing out to sea. The 

 manatees occur in the shallow waters and at the mouths of the great 

 rivers of the Atlantic coasts of America and Africa. The dugongs 

 inhabit the shores of the Indian Ocean, and are common on certain 

 parts of the Australian coasts. There are only two living genera 

 the manatees and dugongs of these animals; a third, the Rhytina 

 Stelleri, having, like the famous Dodo, become extinct through its 



