HALICORE. 63 
Genus I.—HALICORE, J/liger (1811). 
Incisors in the male large, tusk-like, with bevelled off cutting 
edges, and the roots provided with persistent pulp cavities ; in 
the female not penetrating the gum. Not more than three molars 
in each ramus in use simultaneously. Limbs without nails. Tail 
fin lunate. Head in front of the eyes bent abruptly downwards. 
Vertebra.—C. 7, I). 15-18, L. & C. 30=52 — 55. 
“4° 2 0 0 ROKe Vg 9 
Dentition.—I. 5, C.5, P. 5 M. song X2 = 22 to 26. 
1. HaticorE puGone, G'melin, sp. (1788). 
Dugong. 
Skin thick and smooth with a few scattered hairs ; upper lip 
large, its lower edge obliquely truncated, tuberculated, and bristly. 
Flippers short, thick, and fleshy. Colors, above slaty- or brownish- 
black, below lighter. 
Habitat.—Northern Australia, descending on the eastern coast 
as far south as Moreton Bay; from New Guinea through Malaysia 
and along the southern shores of Asia to the Red Sea ; East coast 
of Africa, and Mauritius. 
Dimensions.—Total length up to eight feet. 
References.—Gray, B.M. Catal. Seals and Whales,p. 261; Scott, 
Seals and Whales, p. 52. 
Note.—For many years the idea was prevalent that the Dugongs 
were able to come on shore at will for the purpose of browsing on 
grasses and other terrestrial plants ; but a cursory examination of 
the weakness of the fore-limbs, coupled with the total absence of 
even the internal rudiments of hind limbs, should have been 
sufficient to have at once dispelled a view so incompatible with 
the structure of the animal. By some the flesh is said to be exccl- 
lent, while others maintain that it is almost inedible, a difference 
for which it is easy to account if the sex and age of the individual 
eaten be taken into consideration, or perhaps, though hardly likely 
with a class of animals whose diet is necessarily so restricted, to 
the nature of food consumed. There is, however, no such diversity 
of opinion as to the excellent quality of the oil expressed from 
the subcuticular fat of the Dugong, which is with one accord pro- 
nounced to be pure, clear, free from disagreeable odor, and further 
more, when properly prepared, to possess many, if not all, of the 
remedial properties of cod-liver oil. Dugongs are much more 
strictly marine than Manatees, and their food is therefore chiefly 
restricted to sea-water algz. 
These animals have been by some systematists divided into three 
species, (the basis, apparently, of this opinion being mainly the 
difference of locality) namely, H. tabernaculc from African, H, 
