MAXATID.E. MAMMALIA. MARSUPIAI.TA. 



207 



suit of living animals. In these the snout is conical ' 

 and peculiarly elongated, and in some, as in Delphinus 

 Gangeticus, the jaws are produced to an extreme 

 length, so as to give them every advantage in seizing 

 their swift and slippery prey ; whilst in the herbivorous 

 Dugong the snout is as remarkable for its obtuse, trun- 

 cate character a form, however, which is equally 

 advantageous to it, and well adapted to its habits of 

 browsing upon the algae and fuci which grow upon the 

 submarine rocks of the Indian seas. As, from the fixed 

 nature of the Dugong's food, the motions of the animal 

 during the time of feeding must relate more immediately 

 to the necessity of coming to the surface to respire ; 

 its tail, the principal organ of locomotive ascent and 

 descent, is proportionally greater than in the true 

 Cetacea, its breadth being rather more than one-third 

 the length of the whole body." The Dugong enjoys a 

 pretty wide geographical distribution, being found not 

 only in the Indian seas generally, but also in the Red 

 Sea; formerly large numbers inhabited the shores of 

 the Isle of France. According to Sir Stamford Raffles, 

 and others, they usually feed at two, three, or four 

 fathoms' depth of water. They are abundant off the 

 Malayan coast, and especially at the mouth of the 

 Johore river. The native Malays spear them at night- 

 time ; their presence being indicated by a snuffing noise. 

 When caught, the tail is raised up out of the water, as 

 the animal is quite powerless in this position. The 

 habits of the Dugong are gregarious, herding, says 

 Leguat, to the extent of three or four hundred indi- 

 viduals at a single spot. Like other cetaceans, they 

 display extraordinary attachment to their young, de- 

 fending them to the death ; on being taken the suckers 

 utter a short and sharp cry. All accounts agree in 

 considering the flesh to be delicate and pleasant eating. 



One or two other Dugongs have been described. 

 Ruppell considers the form inhabiting the Red Sea as a 

 separate species ; and this opinion is shared by several 

 naturalists. It was called by him Halicore Taberna- 

 culi, from a notion that the skin was employed by 

 the Jews in veiling the tabernacle. The Australian 

 Dugong (//. cntstralis) is generally admitted to be 

 distinct. 



STELLER'S RHYTINA (Pihytina Stelleri) Plate 26, 

 fig. 86 is one of those interesting mammalian forms 

 whose extinction is only of very recent date, yet so com- 

 plete as to have left scarce a wreck behind. Discovered 

 in 1741, after a few short years it entirely succumbed to 



the rapacity of our greedy race, who, without even 

 affording naturalists a fair opportunity of unravelling its 

 curious structure, have swept it from its native shores, 

 and well-nigh obliterated all trace of its existence. It 

 is well for science, that Steller, whose worthy name 

 it bears, was among the number of those unfortunate 

 voyagers who were wrecked on the inhospitable shores 

 of the dreary island where this animal was first dis- 

 covered ; and it is still more fortunate that he left an 

 authentic record of his discovery, which was published 

 subsequent to his death by the Academy of St. Peters- 

 burg in 1749, and afterwards at Halle in 1753, in a 

 separate treatise entitled " Ausfiihrliche Beschreibung 

 von sonderbaren Meerthieren." At the time of its 

 discovery on Behring's Island, it does not appear to 

 have been particularly abundant, and since the year 

 1768 no trace of its presence in a living state has ever 

 been recorded. There can be no doubt, however, that 

 considerable numbers previously existed,, and these, it 

 appears, have ah 1 fallen a prey to the Aleutian sea- 

 otter hunters, whose exploits have been so graphically 

 described by the Russian explorer Von Kotzebue, and 

 others. Steller's Rhytina attained a length of upwards 

 of twenty-four feet, its greatest circumferential girth 

 being about twenty feet. According to Steller the 

 pectoral flippers contained no digits, which, if correct, 

 is very remarkable ; and what is equally singular, there 

 were no teeth either above or below, their absence 

 being amply compensated by the presence of hard 

 undulating lamellae partly made up of horny tubes and 

 partly calcareous which covered the jaws internally, 

 and performed all the necessary functions of bruising, 

 masticating, and detaching the sea-weeds, on which 

 these animals lived. Another peculiarity is mentioned 

 as affecting the skin ; the epidermis being fully an inch 

 in thickness, and composed of thick cylindrical fibres, 

 which were curiously folded or fissured, so as to present 

 a very rugged uneven surface ; the true dermis remain- 

 ing comparatively thin. The surface of the hide ex- 

 hibited a deep brown or purplish -black tint. The head 

 was small when compared with the bulk of the body ; 

 the tail, on the contrary, extensively developed and 

 of an oval figure. The stomach is described by 

 Steller as small. In the catalogue of Cetacea, preserved 

 in the British Museum, this species is alluded to under 

 the title of the Morskaia Korova or Rhytina gig as. It 

 has also been described under the generic appellations 

 of Stelleras, Mauatus, and even Trichechus. 



ORDER XIII. MARSUPIALIA. 



As indicated in the general introduction to the class 

 Mammalia, the present order exhibits several characters 

 widely differing from those displayed by any of the 

 foregoing, the distinctive features having especial refer- 

 ence to the parts concerned in the reproduction and 

 the rearing of their young. It is almost superfluous, 

 therefore, to recapitulate the facts succinctly stated at 

 page 8 which have led naturalists to acquiesce in the 

 arrangement of Cuvier, who first grouped the marsupials 



together under the ordinal title above retained ; never- 

 theless it may be weh 1 to observe, in brief, that the 

 external and internal characters by which these ani- 

 mals are at once recognized depend upon the presence 

 of abdominal pouches or foldings of the skin, which are 

 inverted in the females for the purpose of concealing, 

 protecting, and nourishing the young, and everted in 

 the males for the lodgment of the reproductive glands. 

 The young are born in an imperfectly developed 



