THE MERMAID. 231 



much more flexible and free in their movements than 

 those of the cetae, and are sufficiently prehensile to enable 

 the animal to gather food between the palms or inner 

 surfaces of both, and the female to hold her young one 

 to her breast with one of them. Like the whales, they are 

 warm-blooded mammals, breathing by lungs, and are there- 

 fore obliged to come to the surface at frequent intervals 

 for respiration. As they breathe through nostrils at the 

 end of the muzzle, instead of, like most of the whales, 



FIG. 17. THE DUGONG. From Sir J. Emerson Tennenfs 'Ceylon? 



through a blow-hole on the top of the head, their habit is 

 to rise, sometimes vertically, in the water, with the head 

 and fore part of the body exposed above the surface, and 

 often to remain in this position for some minutes. When 

 seen thus, with head and breast bare, and clasping its 

 young one to its body, the female presents a certain re- 

 semblance to a woman from the waist upward. When 

 approached or disturbed it dives ; the tail and hinder portion 

 of the body come into view, and we see that if there was 

 little of the " mulier formosa superne" at any rate " desinit 



