AQUATIC PACHYDERMATA; DINOTHEKIUM. 337 



hind-feet, living entirely in the water, and having the form of 

 the whole body modified for an aquatic residence is too wide to 

 allow them to be placed in the same order. But here, as else- 

 where, the space appears to be filled up by fossil species ; the 

 conformation of whose bones affords characters sufficiently deci- 

 sive, to permit their general structure and habits to be inferred 

 with tolerable certainty, from the consideration of even a small 

 part of the entire skeleton. Before proceeding to these, however, 

 it may be remarked that there is a much nearer connection 

 between the existing species of ordinary Pachyderms and the 

 family of MANATIDJS, than might be supposed from their form 

 alone. It has been already remarked that, in those species 

 which approach the Ruminants in the division of the feet, there 

 is an approach also in the complexity of the form of the stomach ; 

 this is particularly the case in the Hippopotamus ; and precisely 

 the same structure is found in the Dugong and Manatee, whose 

 stomachs bear a very close resemblance to that of the Hippo- 

 potamus. Both animals are adapted by their conformation and 

 habits, to food of the same description ; but whilst the Hippo- 

 potamus usually quits the water for its food, and browses upon 

 the herbage and underwood in the neighbourhood, the Manatee is 

 confined to that which grows on the banks of the streams, or 

 beneath the surface. The shortness of the legs, too, in the Hip- 

 popotamus, prepares us for the total disappearance of one 

 pair ; and the flattening of the tail of the common Anoplotherium 

 shows the tendency to the more full development of that organ 

 in the Manatees. There are other points of resemblance between 

 the Hippopotamus and the Lamantins, in the structure and con- 

 tour of the skull, in the position of the eyes and nostrils, and in 

 the thick and complete layer of fat beneath the skin ; so that 

 the gap is not really so wide as it appears. 



303. The remarkable genus which seems to connect the two, 

 has received the name of Dinotherium. The skull is the only 

 part yet found ; and this presents several extraordinary characters. 

 It is more than a yard long, the nasal portion being so pro- 

 longed, as to give the idea that it bore a proboscis ; a similar 

 conformation, however, is seen in the Dugong, which is destitute 



