546 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



pounds of green food daily ! It later refused to eat any cab- 

 bage, but continued its liking for lettuce. In Florida manatees 

 are said to eat the leaves of mangrove trees hanging close to the 

 water, but only when they are unable to obtain their favorite 

 "manatee grass," as in the Sebastian River in the spring and 

 summer of 1894, when on account of the dry season the salt 

 water went nearly to the head of fresh-water streams and so 

 killed it out (Bangs, 1895). 



That the manatee is very sensitive to temperature is well 

 known to those who have kept them in captivity, in aquaria. 

 In a wild state, too, they sometimes suffer from a sudden 

 "freeze." Bangs (1895, p. 785) records that in 1886 the late 

 C. J. Maynard noted three large manatees killed by such a 

 sudden cold and washed ashore at Palm Beach. In 1895 

 Bangs witnessed a similar thing himself, when there occurred 

 two freezes of unprecedented intensity, with the thermometer 

 at 20 F. at Oak Lodge (opposite Micco) on February 12, and 

 only three degrees higher next morning. The intense cold of 

 these two days and nights was later followed by another 

 freeze. The result was that of a herd of eight manatees known 

 for some time to have lived in the Sebastian River, all but 

 three were wiped out, and nearly all the mangroves along the 

 Indian River were killed. The mortality among the fish in 

 shallow water, Bangs wrote, was "such as I never thought to 

 witness. " In both freezes the cold came without any warning 

 and before the manatees could move into deeper water. Since 

 the small herd of eight comprised all the individuals known to 

 be in the vicinity, it is clear that such an occasional catastrophe 

 might easily place the manatee population of all northern 

 Florida in a critical state. A similar catastrophe resulted from 

 the freeze of late January, 1940, when the air temperature in 

 Charlotte and Lee Counties in southwestern Florida "hovered 

 around 19 F.; the water temperature of Charlotte Harbor 

 (Charlotte County) dropped from 68 F. to 46 F.," with the 

 result that on January 28 five dead manatees were found in 

 and about Charlotte Harbor. A. R. Cahn (1940), who reports 

 these facts, remarks that "since manatees are very rare in the 

 area, this mortality, which may well include others not found 

 or reported, is a serious threat to the survival of the species. " 



About 1890 the manatee had become rather scarce in many 

 parts of Florida. Bangs states that the small group of eight 



