MERMAIDS AND MERPIGS 



piscem." The tail is quite fishlike, especially the 

 forked tail of the dugong, and the hind limbs being 

 absent the resemblance is heightened. The corre- 

 sponding legends of beautiful and marine maidens in 

 temperate climes must be mothered upon seals. Indeed 

 the amount of " combing " done by the seal with the aid 

 of its flippers is possibly the explanation of the invari- 

 able possession of a comb by a mermaid. The looking- 

 glass is not so easy to account for. The manatee is a 

 black- coloured animal with but little hair on the body, 

 and with a pair of flippers which bear no nails in a form 

 that has been on two occasions exhibited at the Zoo, 

 and which on that very account is known to zoologists 

 as Manatus inunguis. The hind limbs have gone save 

 for rudiments beneath the skin. There is no beauty 

 in its countenance ; this is hindered by a curiously 

 split upper lip, which allows the animal to manipulate 

 its vegetable food, which it crops in submarine pastures. 

 " Merpig " would be really a more suitable name for 

 this creature, as it undoubtedly comes nearer to the 

 ungulates than to any existing group of mammals. 

 It has not, it is true, " the inn'ards of a Christian," 

 which for some reason or other the pig is regarded as 

 possessing. Its stomach is perhaps more like that of 

 a cow, inasmuch as it is complicated by division into 

 several chambers, as is indeed not infrequent in vege- 

 table feeding animals. The chief internal feature of 

 the manatee is its huge lungs, which perhaps are " con- 

 trived a double debt to pay " lungs when above, and 

 a swimming bladder when below the water. The 

 manatee has no engaging ways and tricks to attract 

 the visitor ; it simply grazes with bovine stolidity. 



THE CARNIVORA OR FLESH-EATING MAMMALS 

 It is hardly possible to mistake the members of this 

 order of the mammalia. Their claws are sharp and 



