■PRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 99 



each ending in a short nail. The head is pointed ; upper lip cleft ; mouth extraordi- 

 narily small (in one individual, of 5 feet in length, the head was 18 inches long, 15 

 inches high, and the orifice of the mouth only 3 inches) ; nostrils directed forward 

 and close over the upper lip — they are crescentic ; eyes upward directed, close 

 behind the nostrils, and (in the above mentioned case only 3^ inches from the end 

 of the muzzle or snout) very small (3 lines in diameter), black ; no spouting-holes ; 

 gullet hard ; tongue immoveable (grown fast) on each side, above and below ; five 

 grinders (with six points and three roots each), extending only a few lines above the 

 gum ; front teeth wanting, instead of which the jaw is bordered with hard, short 

 bristles ; colour, dark grey ; belly, whitish ; the back covered with isolated, rough, 

 red hairs. The Ajuh becomes 10 feet long, and lives in the marshes inundated by 

 the river. With the subsidence of the waters, the animal retires down the river to 

 the ocean ; but reappears in the commencement of the rainy season with the rising 

 waters, bringing with it one or two young, at that period from 3 feet to 4 feet in 

 length. Its food consists chiefly of grass ; and in the dung, which in colour and 

 form resembles that of the horse, no trace of fish was ever found. The Ajuh is 

 exceedingly fat; the flesh and fat, similar to that of the hog, is very well-tasting. 

 The bones are as hard as ivory, and rings are fabricated from them, and whips are 

 made from the skin. The Ajuh appears to be rare ; and I do not believe that during 

 the three months it remains in the Benue more than twenty to thirty are taken. 



On this paper. Prof. Owen read the following Note on the Ajuh of Dr. Vogel. — 

 The translation of Dr.Vogel's account of the animal which that enterprising traveller 

 had seen in the river Benue or Chadda, in Central Africa, permits of no doubt being 

 entertained as to the class, and even genus, of animal to which that brief and some- 

 what vague account refers. The combination of two crescentic nostrils, with a 

 pair of fins attached "close behind the head," shows that it is a cetaceous animal; 

 whilst its food, "chiefly of grass," proves it to belong to the herbivorous section of 

 the order Cetacea of the Cuvierian system, answering to the order Sirenia of Illiger. 

 That order now includes three genera, Manatus, Halicore, and Rytina; the first of 

 which is the only one in which the teeth are multicuspid and with two or more 

 roots. It is therefore a species of Manatee that Dr. Vogel makes known to us 

 under the name of Ajuh. One species of Manatus has long been known as inhabit- 

 ing certain rivers of Africa, especially those terminating on the west coast. This 

 species is the Manatus Senegalensis of Cuvier and other zoologists. A stuffed specimen 

 from that coast is in the British Museum ; it was presented by Messrs. Vorster and Co., 

 African merchants. The back and sides of the body are of a very dark gray, approach- 

 ing to black ; the belly is a Hghtgray. The head is small in proportion to the body, 

 and tapers to an obtuse muzzle ; the upper lip is cleft, and the mouth small. The 

 nostrils, a pair of crescentic clefts, with the convexity upward and backward, are 

 situated as described in the Ajuh : the eyes are, however, not situated close behind 

 the nostrils, and they are distant 7^ inches from the end of the muzzle. This 

 admeasurement is from an individual about 3 feet longer than the one of which the 

 dimensions are given by Dr. Vogel ; but the difference of relative position seems still 

 too great to be accidental or probable in animals of the same species. The hard short 

 bristles which fringe the mouth, the scattered hairs along the back, the nails termina- 

 ting each of the three-jointed digits of the pectoral fin, the want of front or incisive teeth, 

 the hard ivory-like texture of the bones, the fatness and vapid nature of the flesh, 

 are all characters common to the Manatees. The number of nails appears to vary 

 in individuals of the same species, as might be expected in parts almost rudimental 

 in their development, and of no very great utility to the animal. Thus Cuvier 

 notices in one individual of the American Manatee {Manatus Americanus, Desm., 

 M. Amlralis, TiJesius) four flat rounded nails on the edge of the fin ; the fourth 

 being very small. In a foetus of this species there were but three nails on one fin, 

 and four on the other. In a young Manatee, Cuvier noticed only two nails on each 

 fin*. The three nails observed by Dr. Vogel on the fin of the Ajuh, cannot, there- 

 fore, be depended on as a constant or specific character. The teeth of the known 

 species of Manatee have the crown divided into two transverse ridges, — each ridge, 

 in the upper molars, being at first tri-tuberculate ; but the intervals of the tubercles 

 are so shallow that they are soon worn down, and a transverse ridge of dentine, 

 * Ossemens Fossiles, ed. 1836, 8vo, torn. viii. p. 18. 



7* 



