PO TENTIALITIES. 327 



Mr. Arthur Garrick — brother to Sir James Garnck, the Queensland Agent General — to the 

 circumstance that a very large long-necked species, which may protrude its head at least live 

 or six feet above the surface of the water, is familiar to fishermen in the neighbourhood of 

 ■Port Jackson, and was on one occasion seen by the author's informant. 



A highly characteristic Barrier Reef animal, that possesses some existing and probably a yet 

 more considerable latent value, is the Australian dugong, Hnlicore anstralis. It is met with, in 

 more or less abundance, from Moreton Bay throughout the Barrier to Torres Strait. In aspect it 

 somewhat resembles a porpoise or other cetacean, having a smooth, subcylindrical body, a 

 broadly-flattened tail, two anterior flippers, and atrophied hind-limbs. It possesses, how- 

 ever, no dorsal fin, while the head, compared with that of a porpoise, has a distinctly 

 rounded muzzle, and the mouth in the male is armed with projecting tusk-like incisors. The 

 dugong is technically referred to a distinct herbivorous order of the Mammalia known as the 

 Sirenia, which includes, in addition to a Red Sea and Indian member of the same genus, 

 the better known Manatee, Manatus, of the South American and African rivers. Within 

 historic times a much larger representative of the same family, Rhytina StcUcri, attaining to a 

 length of from twenty to twenty-five feet, lived in Behring Sea and other areas of the North 

 Pacific. The last surviving specimen of its race is generally supposed to have been killed in 

 the year 1768. The food of the Australian dugong consists almost exclusively of the Zostera- 

 like marine grass, Posidonia australis, which is developed in great abundance throughout the 

 reef-flats of the inter-tropical coast-line. 



The habits of the dugong are essentially social, the animals assembling in herds, of from 

 half-a-dozen to thirty or forty or more individuals, the females being always much more 

 numerous than the males. The average length of the adult is from eight to ten feet, but it 

 occasionally attains to as much as twelve feet. The young are produced singly, at varying 

 periods of the year. The mother dugong, when nursing her young, is in the habit of raising 

 herself erect in the water, and at such times presents a remote resemblance to a hmnan 

 being. It has been conjectured that the dugong seen under such conditions gave rise to the 

 legendary stories of the existence of mermaids. A chjracteristic illustration of dugongs thus en- 

 gaged, from Sir Emerson Tennent's "Ceylon," is reproduced on page 310. The danger that was 

 threatened, of the animal becoming exterminated in the districts of Moreton and Wide Bays, 

 through over-fishing, has been happily averted ; the Government having taken the precaution 

 to institute a prolonged close season whenever it appears — from the reports of the Fisheries 

 Inspectors — that the herds are becoming too sensibly diminished. 



The chief value of the dugong is associated with the oil it yields. A few 3'ears since it 

 obtained, for medicinal purposes, a first-hand price of ^i per gallon; recently it has receded to as 

 low as twelve shillings, and the fishing is in consequence not nearly so remunerative. The flesh 

 is highly prized by the natives throughout the area of its distribution on the y\ustralian coast. 



