340 MANATEE, EHTTINA. OVO-VIVIPAROVS MAMMALIA. 



mouths of the rivers opening on the north and north-east of South 

 America, and the coast of Mexico; it measures six or seven feet 

 in length ; and its paddles exhibit rudiments of nails, by the aid 

 of which the animal sometimes drags its unwieldy body on shore, 

 and crawls up the banks, either to bask in the sun, or to seek 

 for terrestrial vegetables. Another species is found on the west- 

 ern cvast of Africa ; and a third along the shores of some parts 

 (jf Xorth America. A remarkable animal, the liliijtina Stelleri, 

 belonging to this group, was discovered in 1741 upon the shores 

 of an island in Behring's Straits, where it furnished the principal 

 support of Behring's shipwrecked party for about two months. 

 Within twenty-seven years after its discovery, this curious ani- 

 mal was extirpated by the crews of .ships which visited its resi- 

 dence in search of the Sea Otters, and the only remains of it con- 

 <ist of a skull and a few other fragments in the Russian Museums. 



SIB-CLASS II. OVO-V1VIPAROUS MAMMALIA. 



306. The general character by which the animals of this divi- 

 sion are distinguished from the true Mammalia have been already 

 explained ( 11H); and it has been shown that these are of suffi- 

 cient importance, to require th;it the several species which n<_ r rce 

 in it, should be associated together in a separate group; even 

 although they differ considerably from one another, in the nature 

 of their food, and in the conformation of those organs bv which 

 it is obtained and digested. Thus we find, in some members of 

 this sub class, an opposablc thumb, as perfect as that of many 

 Quadriunana ; in others, a set of teeth and sharp claws, obviously 

 adapted to a Carnivorous regimen; in others, again, the general 

 organisation of the Insectivora; in others, an approach to the 

 peculiar conformation of the Rodentia; and in others, the com- 

 plete absence of teeth, which characterises the true Edentata. 

 Il'-nce some Naturalists have been disposed to arrange these; 

 :-'-veral animals under the Orders, to which they would be referred 

 by the characters just adverted to ; forgetting that they are 

 distinguished from these by characters of far higher importance, 

 - thor-c relating: to the r-tructuie of the braii; ; which correspond, 



