114 NATURAL HISTORY. 



that the prey of the animal is transfixed by it. It is, at 

 any rate, a very powerful weapon, and the Narwhal has 

 been known to thrust it into the oak timbers of a ship. 

 This animal, formidable as it is, is often taken by the 

 Greenlander, who obtains from it oil, food, weapons, and 

 ropes. He uses the tusk in the manufacture of spears, 

 arrows, hooks, etc. 



195. There is a family of Cetacea called the Dugong 

 tribe, which is so aberrant that zoologists differ as to 

 their proper place, some associating them, on account of 

 their thick, tough skins, with the Pachydermata, and 

 some placing them with the Cetacea. They are herbiv- 

 orous, and not carnivorous like the other families of the 

 Cetacea, living mostly on sea-weed. They have stiff mus- 

 taches, and, when their bodies are partly out of the water, 

 they have, viewed at a distance, a somewhat human ap- 

 pearance, which has given rise to the " mermaid" stories. 

 These animals are called Sea-cows, Sea-calves, etc. One 

 species, found in the Indian Seas, especially among the 

 islands of the Indian Archipelago, is eighteen or twenty 

 feet in length. In Fig. 95 you have the skeleton of this 



Fig. 95. Skeleton of Dugong. 



singular animal. It has, you see, no hinder extremities. 

 The anterior extremities are paddles, like the flippers of 

 the Whale ; and the resemblance in the bones to those of 

 the hand of man is very decided, the four fingers being 

 present, and an attempt at a thumb. There is an animal 

 similar to this found on the coast of Mexico and of the 

 northern part of South America. It is, however, smaller, 



