DOLPHINS AND SIRENS. 53 



to the remembrance of the feast, and affords him a 

 subject of conversation. 



As is the case with most of these animals, the skin 

 is very thick and tough, and can be manufactured into 

 various articles. 



Much the same can be said of the Manatees, one 

 of which is represented in the upper portion of the illus- 

 tration. There are several species which inhabit Soufch 

 America and Africa, the former being the best known. 

 The average length is nine or ten feet. Like the 

 Dugong, the Manatees are useful to mankind, furnish- 

 ing excellent food, a delicate oil, and a very tough skin 

 that is invaluable for many purposes. 



In consequence of its value, and of the necessity 

 for inhabiting the shallow waters, where it must be 

 within easy reach of man, it is greatly persecuted, and 

 even now its numbers are sensibly diminished. 



It is much to be feared, indeed, that these singular 

 beings, which form a link between existing and fossil 

 mammalia, may be, before very long, as utterly extinct 

 as the dodo and the great auk, and from the same 

 reason i.e., their helplessness to protect themselves 

 from mankind. Indeed, one species, the Rytina, 

 has been erased from the earth almost within the 

 memory of living men. It was discovered on an 

 island in Behring's Straits in 1741, and in 1768 

 not a single specimen was left alive. It was an enor- 

 mous animal, quite as bulky as a full-sized elephant, 

 though not of the same shape, for its average length 

 was some twenty-five feet, and its thickness rather 

 more than eight feet. If the reader will measure off 

 twenty feet in length on the side of a room, and place 



