117 
CAR. EX. 
SEALS AND WALRUSES. 
‘Vhe Manatees and the Dugongs.—The Seals and the Esquimaux.—King Menelaus 
in a Seal’s Skin.—Barbarous Persecutions of the Seals in Behring’s Sea and the 
Pacifiec.—Adventures of a Sealer from Geneva.—The Sea Calf.—-The Sea Bear. 
—His Parental Affection——The Sea Lions.—The Sea Elephant.—The Arctic 
Walrus.—The Boats of the “ Trent” fighting with a Herd of Walruses.—The 
White Bear.—Touching Example of its Love for its Young.—Chase of the Sea 
Otter. 
Tue Manatees or Lamantins of the Atlantic Ocean, and the now 
nearly extinct Dugongs of the Indian seas, form the connecting 
link between the real whales and the seals and walruses. Like 
the whales, these animals have no hind feet, and a powerful 
tail, which is their chief instrument of locomotion ; they are 
distinguishable, however, from them by less fin-like, more 
flexibly-jointed anterior extremities, oa which they lean while 
cropping the sea-weeds on the shallow shores. When they raise 
themselves with the front part of their bodv out of the water, a 
lively fancy might easily be led to imagine that a human shape, 
though certainly none of the most beautiful, was surging from 
the deep. Hence they have been named sea-sirens, mermaids, 
and mermen, and have given rise to many extravagant fictions. 
Their intelligence is very obtuse, but their stolid calf-lke 
countenance indicates great mildness of temper. 
They live at peace with all other animals, and seem to be 
solely intent upon satisfying their voracious appetite. Like the 
hippopotamus, they swallow at once large masses of sea-plants 
or of juicy grasses growing beyond the water’s edge on the 
borders of rivers. 
The Manatees, or Sea-cows, as they are familiarly called, 
inhabit the coasts and streams of the Atlantic between 19° 
S. lat. and 25° N. lat., and attain a length of from eight to 
ten feet. Humboldt compares the flesh to ham, and Von 
