DOLPHINS, PORPOISES 



cutters or from lugger-rigged rowing boats. The oil is 

 sent south by Danish steamers, and the flesh is smoked for 

 eating, like that of the narwhal. 



Some of the cetacea do not live in the sea altogether, 

 and some are vegetarians. There is a class which spends 

 much of its time in the rivers and is known by the generic 

 name manatidce, the two best-known specimens of which 

 are the dugong and the manatee ; one or two species of 

 this class have become extinct during the last couple of 

 hundred years notably the Rhytina, on which Behring's 

 shipwrecked crew lived for eleven months in their island 

 solitude, a hundred and fifty years ago. 



The dugong fishery is, among civilised people, quite a 

 modern industry, that has arisen on account of the 

 animal's oil, which, it was discovered some years ago, 

 contains all the strengthening medicinal properties of 

 cod-liver oil. Its home is round Polynesia, the East 

 Indies, and Ceylon, and boat-loads of harpooned carcasses 

 are taken ashore by Dutch and Australian fishermen. 

 Many are killed in the river mouths and even on the sea- 

 shore, for the flippers of the manatidae enable the animals 

 to drag themselves along the ground. 



All these creatures are singularly mild and gentle in 

 their disposition, and maternal affection is even more 

 strongly shown by them than by other cetaceans. There- 

 fore the young ones are always aimed at by the 

 harpooners, and the mothers, instantly interposing 

 themselves between the young and the enemy, are easily 

 speared. A brutal practice obtains among the Malay 



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