{Continued from previous page) 

 cognize what I had seen? An articulate 

 man at all acquainted with the vast folk- 

 lore on mysterious monsters might care- 

 fully cherish such an observation, de- 

 velop the details of its impact on his own 

 emotions, and create a legend to puzzle 

 his family and friends for years to come. 

 A literate man might add his observa- 

 tion to the large body of literature about 

 marine creatures whose observed fea- 

 tures do not identify them as animals 

 known to science. 



Before the monster showed its hand, 

 I had been observing the sea cows that 

 occasionally billowed up from the depths 

 beneath the boat rail. Low tempera- 

 tures had attracted them here to loll in 

 the flow of warm waste water from a 

 nearby power plant. When one rose 

 for a breath it might dawdle for a mo- 

 ment before sinking back out of sight 

 for another ten minutes. Identifiable 

 individuals drifted around in an eddy 

 beneath the rail. I was watching for 

 identifying notches or scars on them and 

 sketching them onto manatee outlines 

 stenciled in my notebook. In spite of 

 my mysterious chimera the manatees 

 continued to show themselves, and this 

 kept me too busy to despair over my 

 failure to identify the monster's gestur- 

 ing hand. 



Some minutes later, to my joy but 

 further perplexity, the strange figure rose 

 again only 200 feet away. The same 

 features could now be seen even better. 

 It turned its side slowly to me, showing 

 itself to be thin, tapering upward to 

 perhaps two inches at the top. The 

 form definitely suggested an appendage 

 of some large sea animal. But still I 

 could think of no possible one. My pen- 

 cil swiftly sketched its shape. The mon- 

 ster sank out of sight leaving me more 

 baffled than before. What could be 

 done? 



Some minutes later a manatee with a 

 small H-shaped scar on its back surfaced 

 gently ten feet away. Recognizing this 

 as an individual that I had known from 

 five years before, I warmed up at this 

 extraordinary success. Half an hour 

 later when several more manatees had 

 been recorded, a particularly black sea 



cow with a calf clinging to its back rose 

 directly beneath me to within five feet of 

 the deck on which I stood. Perhaps 

 the old manatee saw me involuntarily 

 crane forward (one rarely sees a wild 

 baby manatee at all, let alone one riding 

 piggyback). At any rate the old sea 

 cow did not quite surface for a breath 

 but arched smoothly back down into 

 the murk. In doing this, it showed its 

 unbelievably mangled tail. This was 

 the hand of the monster! My ready 

 pencil quickly sketched the form onto 

 the next stenciled manatee outline in 

 my notebook. Considerably later the 

 same manatee and baby, now presum- 

 ably drifting around the eddy, rose be- 

 neath me twice more, enabling me to 

 check the details of the sketch. 



The resulting drawing (page 7) shows 

 the upper view of the extraordinary 

 mutilation of the tail. The sea cow's 

 wounds were healed, and both it and 

 the calf were plump, but the fact that 

 the remnant of tail was three or more 

 times thicker than is natural suggests 

 that this poor female had been pared 

 close to a critical point. This abnormal 

 thickness, of course, accentuated the 

 grotesqueness of the vestige. 



A later tally revealed that four-fifths 

 of the dozens of manatees that I came 

 to know individually had their tails 

 scarred, notched, or sliced. In many 

 cases this was obviously done by boat 

 propellers. 



During the many hours that I have 

 recorded the behavior of free, wild man- 

 atees I have more than once observed 

 a submerged animal protrude its (nor- 

 mal) tail above the surface vertically 

 some 6 to 10 inches, wave it languidly 

 back and forth, and then slowly with- 

 draw it from sight. 



The probability must be exceedingly 

 small that an observer sufficiently ready 

 with sketchbook or camera would ob- 

 serve a wild individual so extraordin- 

 arily mutilated, of a species so seldom 

 seen by man, performing so unusual an 

 act. And if he did, what chance would 

 there be that he should again see the 

 same individual under conditions en- 

 abling him to identify it as an animal 

 known to science? Not much. None- 



Chicago Natural History Museum 



Founded by Marshall Field, 1893 



Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive 



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Telephone: 922-9410 



THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES 



Lester Armour 

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 Bowen Blair 

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 Joseph N. Field 

 Marshall Field 

 Stanley Field 

 Clifford C. Gregg 

 Samuel Insull, Jr. 

 Henry P. Isham 

 William V. Kahler 



Hughston M. McBain 

 J. Roscoc Miller 

 William H. Mitchell 

 James L. Palmer 

 John T. Pirie, Jr. 

 John Shedd Reed 

 John G. Searle 

 John M. Simpson 

 Edward Byron Smith 

 Louis Ware 

 J. Howard Wood 



OFFICERS 

 Stanley Field, Chairman ol the Board 



James L. Palmer, President 



Clifford C. Gregg, First Vice-President 



Joseph N. Field, Second Vice-President 



Bowen Blair, Third Vice-President 



Edward Byron Smith, Treasurer 



and Assistant Secretary 



E. Lcland Webber, Secretary 



THE BULLETIN 



EDITOR 

 E. Lcland Webber, Director ot the Museum 



CONTRIBUTING EDITORS 



Paul S. Martin, Chief Curator o( Anthropology 



Louis O. Williams, Chief Curator of Botany 



Rainer Zangerl, Chief Curator of Geology 



Austin L. Rand, Chief Curator of Zoology 



MANAGING EDITOR 

 Paula R. Nelson, Public Relations Counsel 



Members are requested to inform the Museum 

 promptly of changes of address. 



theless, this one instance when a mon- 

 ster did reveal its true identity may 

 signify the end of an era. Sea monsters 

 may have to face up to a small but in- 

 creasing risk. When one of them at- 

 tempts to bring off a mystifying appear- 

 ance, it may encounter a biologist whose 

 investigation just happens to require 

 that he be standing there ready with 

 sketchbook or camera, able to wait un- 

 til the monster discloses its identity.  



THIS MONTH'S COVER— 

 taken from a Museum exhibit of 

 manatees — pictures Dr. Moore's 

 monster in its natural habitat. 

 The exhibit, which is located in 

 the Hall of Marine Mammals 

 (Hall N) on the Museum's ground 

 floor, is featured during November. 



Page 8 NOVEMBER 



PRINTED BY CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PRESS 



