iinYTiNA. 203 



Timor a new species makes its appearance. This has also been met with by Jukes on the 

 north coast of Australia, at Endeavour Strait, in 22° S. Lat.* It has since been found in consi- 

 derable numbers in Moreton Bay, but not further to the south. It is, however, j)lentiful along the 

 north coast. It was figured and described by Professor Owen under the name of IIalicore 

 AUSTRALis. Records of the Dugong having been found along the northern coast of Australia are 

 numerous, and no doubt belong to this new species, although they are stated as being the old 

 II. CETACEA, for until the new one was ascertained to be distinct, the attention of observers was not 

 di-awn to. this point, and all who saw it took it for granted that it was the common species. 

 The chief distinguishing character is the development of six teeth in each jaw, while the Indian 

 Dugong has only five ; a most insufficient character, if the dentition of the Dugong is at all of 

 the same nature as that of the Manatee, in which the nvmiber of teeth is an individual affiiir de- 

 pendent upon age, not a specific character. The species may be a good one, notwithstanding. There 

 must have been something in it which first suggested the idea of its being distinct before scientific 

 specific characters were sought for ; and if so, they wiU doubtless still be found ; and, moreover, the 

 dentition may very possibly be on a different system, for the adidt possesses two incisors in the 

 upper jaw, which the adult Manatee does not. It also greatly exceeds the Manatee in size, reaching 

 as much as eighteen or twenty feet in length. 



Rhytixa. — A not less interesting subject than the Manatee anq). Dugong, is the other section 

 of the Sirenia, named Rhytina, which is characterised by several remarkable peculiarities. One of 

 these is, that instead of teeth it had a waved or transversely furrowed horny plate on the anterior 

 part of the palate, opposed to a similar one between the lower jaws ; these, when the animal was 

 alive, must have been flexible and clastic, for those of preserved specimens became so after being 

 steeped for a few days in water. Another peculiarity was, that what appeared to be the skin was 

 a coat of nearly an inch in thickness, composed of perpendicular horny tubes, analogous to hair, 

 agglutinated together like the horn of the Rhinoceros. This skin was — (it is distressing to have 

 to speak of it in the past tense, but it is a hundred j'cars since it was killed and eaten off 

 the face of the earth by gluttonous man), — was blackish brown and rough and wrinkled, especially 

 on the sides, resembling in some respects the rough bark of a tree, and was so hard that the 

 blows of an axe could scarcely penetrate it. The animal was of great size, its length having 

 reached twenty-four feet, and its circumference nineteen feet. 



It was discovered in 1741 upon the shores of Bhering's Island, an island lying to the south- 

 west of Bhering's Straits, and near the Asiatic end of the Aleutian Isles. Bhering's second expedi- 

 tion was shipwrecked upon it, and ten months were spent there by his shipwrecked crew, during 

 which they were mainly supported by the food obtained from this animal, which was then so numerous 

 that SteUer, who formed part of Bhering's expedition, estimated that they were sufficient to feed the 

 whole population of Kamschatka. This apparently inexhaustible depot of superior food of course 

 became bruited abroad, and the hunters and whalers soon made a practice of wintering at Bhering's 

 Island and provisioning their ships with these animals, and made such havoc among them that 

 they were speedily extinguished, the last ha-song been killed in 1768. 



Steller, notwithstanding the unfavourable circumstances — (enduring the hardships and priva- 

 tions of a shipwreck in that inclement region) — under which he was placed for making scientific 

 observations, or writing scientific treatises, prepared an admirable account of the beast, which was 



* Jukes' "Voyage of the Flj," vol. ii. p. 323. 



