TARPON-FISHING. 217 



' A what!" 



" Eh mermaid — er a merman — er a big polly wog — bigger than 

 that nigger. Got arms and no legs, and a flopper fur a tail." 



" Yes, of course we would," and learning by further questions 

 that it was a manatee of which he spoke, we were soon under way, 

 and after an hour's sail our sloop was anchored at the mouth of a 

 river emptying into the southern end of the bay. It was a sluggish 

 river of small size, and the tide rose and fell in it as we could see 

 by the markings on the mangrove bushes that fringed the shore 

 about three feet. 



Taking to our canoes we paddled up the stream with the flood 

 of the tide for several miles. The river broadened here and there 

 into lakelets or shallow pools filled with grass of various kinds, and 

 in one of these pools we saw our first manatee. We were lying 

 quietly at the point of reeds that fringed the entrance to the lake, 

 watching some swans that were disporting in the water, when I 

 heard a noise like a sigh. Looking in the direction from whence 

 it came, we saw the head of a manatee that had come up to breathe. 

 Nothing is stranger than its physiognomy. Its muzzle, dark grey, 

 almost black, seems to be divided perpendicularly into parts like a 

 rabbit's, with a third part fitting in from below. Each part is 

 shaped like a pad or a fat pin-cushion filled with black pins, and 

 the three parts open and shut like valves. When the nozzle is 

 directed toward one the eyes are not seen, and the animal, having 

 no visible ears, seems to be all nose. 



The skin wrinkles around the neck like the skin on a fur seal 

 bull, and the little eye is black, and would be unnoticed but for 

 the wrinkles that surround it. Its tail, shaped like a beaver's, 

 lies flat with the surface of the water, in order to aid its rising 

 and diving. Two large flippers are in the place of fore-legs, 

 each having four little toe-nails upon them, and a large pulpous 

 almond-shaped tail completes an animal that for lazy, innocent 

 self-indulgence has no counterpart in nature. Those we saw 

 were about ten feet in length, and the fishermen say they catch 

 those that are larger, weighing one thousand pounds. They feed 

 exclusively on the various grasses that grow in the bottom of the 

 rivers, chiefly on fuscus vesiculosis. They have thirty -two teeth, all 



