1 66 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



skeleton now preserved in the University Museum, 

 Helsingfors It was said to be that of a young sea- 

 cow, being one-third less and also more imperfect than 

 the specimen preserved at St. Petersburg, many of 

 the bones being missing. Baron Nordenskiold's 

 party filled twenty-one large casks, boxes, or barrels 

 with bones. Three very fine perfect skulls were 

 brought home by them, and a fine rhytina skeleton, 

 doubtless constructed from this grand series, was 

 subsequently exhibited at the "Vega" exhibition in 

 the Royal Palace at Stockholm. Alexander Brandt 

 attempted by means of a plaster cast of the cranial 

 cavity to gauge the size and weight of the sea-cow's 

 brain, which was found to be intermediate between 

 those of the manatee and dugong. A nearly com- 

 plete skeleton 19 feet 6 inches long from Behring 

 Island was acquired early in 1885 for the National 

 Collection, and may now be seen cleaned and 

 mounted in the Natural History Museum at South 

 Kensington. It was purchased from Mr. Robert 

 Damon, F.G.S., who had himself dug it up from 

 the Pliocene deposits of compact peat : indeed, peat 

 was actually found inside the skull and hollow bones 

 of this specimen (see Proceedings of the Geological 

 Society of London for March 25th, 1885). In the 

 Royal College of Surgeons' Museum will be found 

 a cast of a magnificent rhytina skull in the Zoological 

 Museum of the Imperial University of Moscow. 

 M. Anatole Bogrdanow, Director of the Moscow 



