MISCEIylvANKA. 

 MAMMALS. 



The appendicular skeleton of the Dugong {Halicore 

 dugong). — In a recent note on the Dugong of the Gulf of Manaar 

 {Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1905, p. 238) I expressed an intention 

 of dealing with certain anatomical points in a subsequent com- 

 munication. As, however, most of these points have since been 

 elucidated in a series of memoirs by Messrs. H. Dexler and L. 

 Freund (see Wiegmann's Archiv fur Naturgeschicte for 1906, vol. i, 

 p. 77, and the American Naturalist, vol. xi, pp. 49 and 567, 

 1906), further descriptions are unnecessary : these authors' observa- 

 tions were made on Australian specimens, but I cannot detect any 

 constant difference between the races of Halicore found in Australian 

 and in Indian seas. There are two features in the skeleton, how- 

 ever, to which I would like to invite attention, namely {a) the 

 presence of three distinct bones in the pelvic girdle, and [h) the 

 variability of the manus. 



{a) In recent accounts of the vestigial pelvic girdle of the species 

 two bones are said to be present (see Weber's Die Saugetiere, p. 732, 

 fig. 526). I^ a large Australian s skeleton, however, and in an 

 individual of the same sex and approximately the same size 

 dissected by myself on the Madras coast, I find that there is a 

 third bone, which lies at the distal extremity of the lower of the two 



Fig. I, xl. 



already recognized. It is compressed and nail-shaped, measuring 

 about 15 mm. in length and 6 mm. at the proximal end in breadth. 

 The relations of the three bones to one another are represented in the 

 accompanying diagram (fig. i). There is probably a considerable 

 amount of variation as regards the form and size of the three bones, 

 but this is a question on which the material at my disposal affords 

 little information. 



(6) I have examined the manus of the two specimens already 

 referred to, as well as that of several other individuals in which it is 

 imperfect, while I am indebted to Sir William Turner and Prof. D. J. 

 Cunningham for photographs of a specimen in the Anatomical Mus- 

 eimi of the University of Edinburgh and to Dr. A. Willey for a sketch 

 (fig. 4) of the hand of an adult female in the Colombo Museum. An 

 examination of this material proves, as is well shown in figs. 2, 3 

 and 4, that the bones vary in number and relative development 



