280 FAUNA AMERICANA. 



Char. Essent. Head round ; no tusks ; tail cm- 

 ciform; skin naked, very thick, corneous and 

 fibrous. 



Dimensions. Total length at least twenty-three 

 feet; greatest circumference nineteen feet; weight 

 about eight thousand pounds. 



Description. Head round, confounded with the 

 neck and body ; mouth small, placed beneath the 

 snout, and having the lips double, spongy, thick 

 and swollen, furnished exteriorly with white bris- 

 tles, recurved, and four or five inches long, form- 

 ing whiskers ; lower jaw projecting beyond the 

 upper ; opening of the mouth placed near the ex- 

 tremity of the snout, of equal width and length ; 

 eyes without eyebrows, but having at the large 

 angle a cartilaginous membrane, covering them at 

 the will of the animal ; no external ear ; anterior 

 extremities destitute of toes, phalanges and nails : 

 skin an inch thick, without hair. 



Anterior extremity consisting of a scapula, 

 humerus ; two bones of the fore arm, a carpus and 

 metacarpus, but no phalanges ; pelvis composed 

 of two ossa inominata, resembling the ulna of man, 

 attached by strong ligaments to the twenty-fifth 

 vertebra ; a pubis ; six cervical f ertebfoi, nineteen 

 dorsal, and thirty-five caudal; stomach simple: 

 intestines very long, (four hundred and sixty-six 

 feet;) caecum enormous; colon extensive and 

 divided into great cells. 



Habit. Residins; in brackish water in the 



