74 Sirenia 



between land and sea animals. In every way they are 

 a compromise ; but a study of them is of the utmost 

 value as showing how the transition from land to sea 

 of all the whales took place. A careful examination 

 of them shows various characteristics almost identical 

 with those of seals, such as nostril-shaped blowholes, 

 large, expressive eyes, and whiskers on the muzzle, 

 while scattered about the body are many bristly hairs, 

 evidently a survival of the hairy covering of a land 

 animal being replaced as the sea-life is taken to by a 

 coating of blubber beneath the skin. 



But the grand peculiarity about the Sirenia is their 

 vegetarianism. Some of the Deiphinidae do eat algae, 

 those, that is, whose habitat is some great river like the 

 Amazon or Ganges, but even with them it is certain that 

 they are not exclusively vegetarian, from the contents 

 of their stomachs, and there is even a doubt in some 

 minds whether the presence of vegetable matter in 

 their stomachs is not a matter of accident rather than 

 preference. But the Manatee and Halicore are, un- 

 doubtedly, exclusively vegetable-feeders, which at once 

 places them upon a plane apart from all their fellows 

 in a rigidly carnivorous community. Is it any wonder 

 that one species (Rhytina) has become extinct ? They 

 are too gentle for their stem world ; as much out of 

 place in it as a herd of antelopes in a jungle peopled with 

 tigers. 



The first sight of the Dugong as it lifts its queer head 

 above the surface is startling. Although upon a close 

 examination it would be impossible to trace any resem- 

 blance whatever to the human form divine, yet, from 

 the pose of the head and remembering the suddenness 

 with which it pops up, perhaps on a brilliantly moonlit 

 night, one can find some excuse for its scientific generic 

 name, Sirenia, some justification for the old seafarers 



