548 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



From this list it appears that in Senegal it occurs mainly in 

 the coastal lagoons, but Rochebrune in 1883 notes that it no 

 longer was found in the Sorres lagoon where Adanson recorded 

 it in 1757. The presence of manatees in the Gambia River 

 was reported in recent years, and there are old records for 

 Sierra Leone. Biittikofer found it in the St. Pauls River, 

 Liberia, below the rapids, and in the 1840's a specimen was 

 secured by the missionary Perkins in Caracalla River, Ivory 

 Coast. In more recent times it has been taken at Lagos and 

 Benin, while from the Niger River manatees are known from 

 "the lower reaches near the coast, the upper section above 

 Timbuctu, and from the river Benue" (Hatt, 1934). In 1908 

 Maclaud found that the manatee was not uncommon in the 

 lakes along the Niger near Timbuctu, but had almost disap- 

 peared from the large coastal rivers of Nigeria; Migeod found 

 it common in 1924 in the Benue River, especially at Numan, 

 below Yola. On the Gulf of Guinea there are many older 

 records of its presence in the mouths of rivers as the Cameroon 

 River, Rio Muni, Gabun and Ogowe Rivers, and it is said to 

 occur in the mangrove regions of the Cameroons. In the lower 

 Congo it is found in some numbers below the first rapids, 

 particularly in the region about Boma, but is unknown above 

 the rapids. Hatt's specimen was from Banana. In the mouths 

 of rivers of northern Angola it is occasionally found, and here 

 its southernmost limit seems to be the Quanza or Cuanza 

 River, where it was first mentioned by David Livingstone, 

 who on his famous journey states that at Loando the Portu- 

 guese were acquainted with it and called it the " Peixe-mulher " 

 "woman-fish," doubtless on account of its pectoral mammae). 

 Hatt further reviews the supposed occurrence of the manatee 

 in the Lake Chad Basin, the upper Congo, and the Great 

 Lakes, but concludes that the evidence for its presence in these 

 waters is not conclusive. The reports of manatees about the 

 island of St. Helena refer doubtless to elephant seals or some 

 other pinniped. 



Although in certain regions the manatee is much sought for 

 its flesh and hide by the natives, there is little direct evidence 

 of its extermination but rather of its gradual diminution in 

 numbers. Woods (1937, pp. 23-28), writing of the Anambra 

 system of creeks in Nigeria, says that "from present indica- 

 tions" the manatee has been "either practically exterminated 



