CETERACH CETOCHILUS. 



. Limdel islands during the north-eastern monsoons 



. than during the opposite one. 



The Stellere (Rijtina wrinkled). This animal is 

 found in much colder latitudes than any other of the 

 herbivorous cetacea. Its chief habitat is the northern 

 parts of the Pacific, where it occurs both on the coast 

 of America and on that of Asia. The history of this 

 animal was, for some time, obscure ; but it is now 

 tolerably well cleared up, and there is reason to 

 believe that, in some parts of the north seas, stray 

 specimens of this genus may have been the mermaids, 

 of which the accounts are too numerous not to have 

 had some foundation, however much of that which 

 was raised on it may have been fabulous. 

 , The most remarkable character of this animal is 

 the teeth, of which there is, properly speaking, only 

 one in each side of each jaw. These teeth are flat on 

 their crowns, with many zig-zag ridges of enamel ; 

 but the intermediate matter, which forms the body 



.of the tooth, is of a horny nature. They have 

 no true roots, but are united to the jawbones by 

 means of cartilage, in the same manner that the plates 

 of baleen in whales are united to the bones of the 

 head. 



The head of the animal is obtuse, without any dis- 

 tinct appearance of neck ; the body is thick at the 

 middle part, but tapers off to the tail. The whole 

 body is covered with a very thick epidermis, which is 

 naked, or without detached hair ; but it may be 

 regarded as a coat of short hairs, all soldered into one 

 compact mass, for it consists wholly of short fibres 

 which stand perpendicular to the surface of the epi- 

 dermis, or true skin. This structure of the epidermis 

 is certainly curious, but it is in the structure merely 

 that the curiosity consists ; for, in all animals, the 

 substance of the epidermis has a very considerable 

 resemblance to that of hair, and, indeed, even hair 

 and feathers are of the same nature as the epidermis, 

 and, in fact, productions from it. The fingers of the 

 swimming pores are closely united to their termina- 

 tions by the membranes, and they have no distinct 

 nails, though the tips of the pores are callous. The 

 caudal fin is crescent-shaped, very broad, but not very 

 long, and its two points are very sharp. The females 

 have two mammae on the breast, which are rather 

 prominent. 



The lips have the appearance of two great sausages ; 

 the mouth is small and below the muzzle ; the eyes 

 are, in great part, covered by a cartilaginous mem- 

 brane, which forms a sort of third eye-lid ; there are 

 no external ears ; and in the paws, the bones of 

 the fingers are short and soldered together, so that 

 this animal is not more powerful on land than the 

 cetacea' properly so called. Two of the vertebrae of 

 the neck are so closely united, that some describers 

 have stated them as being only six in number ; but 

 this is a mistake. There are nineteen vertebrae in the 

 body and thirty-five in the tail. The rudimental 

 bones of the pelvis are long and round, and attached 

 to the tail vertebrae of the body by ligaments. The 

 stomach is not so completely divided into compart- 

 ments as in most of the other cetacea, but the 

 intestines are very long ; the caeca are large, and the 

 colon is turned and partially divided by septa. The 

 whole of the alimentary apparatus, indeed, indicates 

 a very laborious digestion. 



There is only one known species, an inhabitant 

 exclusively of the sea, in which habit it differs from 

 the rest of the group, more especially from the 



795 



manati. The skin of the body is very rough and 

 wrinkled, and was compared by Steller, the first 

 person who observed and described the animal, to the 

 rough bark of an old oak tree. The head is small as 

 compared with the body ; it is elongated, and dimin- 

 ishes down from the top to the muzzle. The* mustachios 

 are several inches in length, re-curred, and of a white 

 colour. The nostrils are in the front of the muzzle ; 

 and the eyes, which are black, and about the same 

 size as those of a shark, are placed in the same longi- 

 tudinal lines wit'h the nostrils, and separate mid-way 

 between them and the openings of the ears. These 

 openings are near the neck, and very small for the 

 size of the animal. 



The swimming paws are situated immediately un- 

 der the neck, and they enable the animal not only to 

 keep itself steady to the action of the tail in swim- 

 ming, but to hold on upon the crags of the rocks, 

 from which it bites the sea-weed. This animal attains 

 the length of at least five-and-twenty feet, and mea- 

 sures about eighteen in circumference at the thickest 

 part. The weight, when of this size, is between three 

 and four tons. 



These animals are gregarious, and assemble in 

 numerous troops in the bays when the weather is 

 calm, and they often enter the mouths of rivers. 

 In their progress the old ones generally surround the 

 young, in order to protect them from danger. They 

 pair in spring, and bring forth in autumn, the period 

 of gestation being understood to be nine months. 

 They swim with about half the body above the 

 surface of the water. In stormy weather they come 

 near the shores; and in winter, when the shallow 

 water freezes to a considerable distance southward, 

 they are scantily fed, and by the time that the ice 

 clears away they get very lean. 



The inhabitants of eastern Asia, especially of 

 Kamtschatka, the Aleutian Islands, and other adjoin- 

 ing parts, pursue these animals with great assiduity, 

 esteeming them the most valuable products of the 

 sea. Their tough hides serve them for boats, which 

 are generally stretched upon ribs of bone or whale- 

 bone, and they are very light and buoyant. The 

 flesh is much relished by some of these semi-barba- 

 rous tribes. In the old animals it is tough, and 

 requires a great deal of cooking ; but in the young 

 it is something intermediate between veal and pork. 

 The fat of the young very much resembles that of 

 the hog. 



These animals are exceedingly numerous in the 

 part of the sea to which allusion has been made, 

 more so perhaps than any cetacea are in any other 

 part, if we except the manati in some parts of the 

 rivers of South America. As they are surface ani- 

 mals, and do not frequent the deep water, except on 

 their voyages from place to place, they are very 

 conspicuously seen, and give a character to the seas 

 in which they are found. It is said that bones, 

 though no living individuals, have been seen in the 

 Greenland seas ; and if it be true, as it is highly pro- 

 bable, that the point of lowest temperature is the 

 situation of the magnetic pole, it is by no means 

 unlikely that they may pass from sea to sea further 

 to the north. 



CETERACH (Willdenow), is an English fern, 

 called by Linnaeus, Asplcnium Ceterdch, and Gram- 

 mitis Ceterach by Swartz. It has been long used 

 medicinally. 



CETOCHILUS. A minute genus of crustaceous 



