390 Dr KNOX on the Dentition of the Dugong, and on the 



in the minds of most readers an easy credence as to the exact- 

 ness of whatever researches there find a place, I hesitated no 

 longer as to the course to be adopted. 



A considerable time ago, Mr SWINTON, to whom this Society 

 owes so many rare and valuable presents in anatomy and zoology, 

 transmitted to this country the head of an apparently full grown 

 dugong from the Indian Seas, clothed with all the soft parts, and 

 seemingly, in every respect, uninjured. Together with the head, 

 which was preserved in strong spirits, and quite fresh when it 

 reached this country, Mr SWINTON had taken the trouble to for- 

 ward in like manner to the Society the heart*, stomach, and or- 

 gans of generation, which appertain to the female, from which 

 one may reasonably conjecture that these preparations belonged 

 to the same individual, and, if so, that the cranium of the 

 dugong, now in the possession of the Society, belonged to the 

 female. 



Our Secretary and Treasurer, who do me the honour to 

 consult me as to the disposal and arrangement of the anato- 

 mical and zoological presents to the Society, were so kind as to 

 inform me early of the arrival of these, and to put them at my 

 disposal, directing me to dissect and prepare them in whatever 

 way I should deem most fit for the interests of the Museum and 

 of science. 



This communication afforded me the greatest pleasure. I 

 knew, indeed, that some coarse dissections of the dugong had been 

 made in this and in other countries, and that a theory as to the 



* In the excellent anatomical account of the Lamantin, drawn up by DATIBEN- 

 TON merely from a foetus, preserved for some time in spirits, and under great disad- 

 vantages therefore, that careful observer first discovered and described the bifurca- 

 tion of the heart, and partial separation of the ventricles of that organ from each 

 other. A similar structure was afterwards found to exist in the dugong. 



