182 MAMMALIA. 



FAMILY I. 



HERBIVOROUS WHALES. 



Their teeth have a flat crown, which determines their mode of life, and 

 tliis induces them to leave the water frequently, to come on and crawl 

 and pasture on the shore. They have two mammie on the chest, and 

 mustachio-like hairs; two circumstances which, when observed from a 

 distance as they raise the anterior part of the body vertically above the 

 water, may give them some resemblance to woman or man, and have 

 probably occasioned those fabulous accounts of Tritons and Sirens which 

 some travellers pretend to have seen. Although in the cranium the bony 

 nostrils open towards the top, the orifices in the skin are pierced at the 

 end of the muzzle. Their stomach is divided into four sacs, of which 

 two are lateral, and they have a large ceecum. 



Manatus, Cuv. 



The Lamantins, or rather the Manati or Cow-whales, have an oblong 

 body, terminated by an elongated oval fin; the grinders, eight in number 

 throughout, have a square crown, marked with two transverse elevations ; 

 there are neither incisors nor canines in the adult; but when very young, 

 we find two very small pointed teeth in the intermixillary bones, which, 

 soon disappear. Vestiges of nails are discoverable on the edges of their 

 fins, which they employ with tolerable dexterity in creeping and carrying 

 their young; hence the comparison of these organs with hands, and the 

 name of Manatus applied to this animal, of which Lamantin is a corrup- 

 tion. From their manner of living, they are also called Sea-Ox, or Sea- 

 Cow, and from their mammae, Mermaid, &c. — Trichechus manatus (a), 

 Lin. ; Buff. XIII. Ivii. 



They are found near the mouths of rivers in the hottest parts of 

 the Atlantic Ocean, and it appears that those of the American rivers 

 are specifically diiferent from those of Africa.* They grow to the 

 length of fifteen feet. Their flesh is used as food (6). 



Halicore, Jllig.-f — DuGONG, Lacep. 



The Dugongs have grinders composed each of two cones laterally 



See Oss. Foss., torn, first part. f Halicore, Maid of the Sea. 



^ (a) This is tlie Trichecus Manatus of Linnffus, a species belonging to the 

 genus Trichecus, which he placed in his order Bruta. — Eng. Ed. 



f^ {b) At Table Bay, in the Cape of Good Hope, a British establishment is sta- 

 tioned for the Whale fisherj-, the piincipal species taken being called the Cow- 

 Whales. These animals are annually accustomed to go into the bays on the above 

 coast for the purpose of obtaining a medium of slill water and sand, which is said 

 to be essential to the parturition of all the black Whales.— Eng. Ed. 



