SIRENTA. 547 
The colour of the Bottle-nosed Dolphin is rather different from that of the common 
Dolphin. Its back is not of the same jetty hue, but is deeply tinged with purple, its 
flanks are dusky, and the under portions are greyish-white, and do not glisten with the 
pure silvery-white of the ordmary Dolphin of our coasts. 
Although it is a rare animal, it has more than once been eaptured upon our coasts, one 
specimen having been taken in the river Dart in Devonshire, and another in the river at 
Portsea. Two more Bottle-nosed Dolphins, a mother and her young one, were caught 
upon the sea-coast near Berkely, where they had been seen for several days haunting the 
neighbourhood. The first of these specimens was captured when it had ascended the river 
about five miles, and was so powerful and active that it did not resign its life until it had 
fought for a space of four hours against eight men armed with spears and guns, and 
assisted by dogs. While strugeling with its foes it bellowed loudly, making a sound like 
that of an enraged bull. This individual was more than eleven feet in length. 
In many instances the teeth of the Bottle-nosed Dolphin are extremely blunt, a 
circumstance which was once thought to be peculiar to the species. Myr. Bell, however, 
proves to the contrary by the fact of possessing two skulls of Bottle-nosed Dolphins, 
in which the teeth are of the usual length, and as sharp as in the ordinary Dolphin. 
When the teeth are thus worn down, the creature is unable to interlock them rightly, as 
the narrow portion of the teeth has been ground down, and the interstices are too narrow 
to receive the wide stumps. The name of Blunt-toothed Dolphin has been given to this 
animal on account of the supposed normal shape of the teeth. The lower jaw of this 
species projects rather beyond the upper. 
THERE is a curious amimal belonging to this family, which inhabits the Ganges, and is 
known by the name of the Soosoo. ; 
It is remarkable for the curious shape of its “ beak,” which is long, slender, compressed 
at the sides, and is larger at the extremity than in the middle. The number of its teeth 
is about one hundred and twenty. It is a swift and powerful, but at the same time a 
sluggish animal, appearing to partake largely of the curious mixture of sloth and energy 
which is found in the huge lizards that frequent the same river, and never caring to 
exert itself except in chase of its prey. Its colour is greyish-black upon the back, and 
white on the abdomen. The eye is wonderfully small, being only one-eighth of an inch 
in diameter in a Soosoo which measures four or five feet in length. There is no dorsal fin, 
its place being indicated by a small projection. 
SIRENTA, 
THE small but singular group of animals that are classed together under the title of 
the SIRENIA, are so formed that ‘dnatomists have had much difficulty in deciding upon 
their proper position in the animal kingdom. Many parts of their structure exhibit so 
strong an affinity to the pachydermata, or thick-skinned mammalia, that they have been 
placed next to the elephants by some zoologists, while their fish-like form and aquatic 
habits have induced other writers to place them in the position which they now oceupy in 
the British Museum. They feed chiefly on vegetable substances, and find the greater part 
of their subsistence in the thick herbage that edges the waters where they reside. Their 
nostrils are placed at the extremity of the muzzle, as is the case with most mammalia, and 
they are never employed as blow-holes, after the manner of the cetaceans. 
THE MANATEE, or LAMANTINE, is a very strange-looking creature, appearing like a 
curious mixture of several dissimilar animals, the seal and the hippopotamus being 
predominant. 
There are several species of Manatee, two of which are found in America and one in 
Africa, but always on those shores which are washed by the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. 
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