l62 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 175 J. 



ture round the neck : the fore-feet of these are five-fingered, with nails, like the 

 common seal. 



Their size, as to the utmost growth of an adult, is also very different. That 

 before described, was 7^- feet in length ; and, being very young, had scarcely any 

 teeth at all. This in town is but about 3 feet long, is very thick in proportion, 

 and has a well-grown set of teeth ; which, in a great measure, shows this to be 

 about its full growth. The manati is also a phoca, and is one of those species 

 which grows to a prodigious size. The great skin, in the museum, is that of a 

 manati ; which seems to agree with the other species of this family, in every es- 

 sential part, except broad bifid webs, instead of webbed feet : and Peter Martyr 

 gives an account of one of these, which was 35 feet long, and 12 thick. 



The docility of this seal in town is, with reason, much admired, as a thing 

 unusual and strange to us ; but it appears, from Dr. Charleton, that in his time 

 it was not uncommon for the seamen and fishers to catch some of these creatures 

 sleeping, on the coasts of Cornwall and the Isle of Wight, and bring them to be 

 so tame, as to get money by showing them, and their performances : and he 

 adds, that the people of the former place call the larger kinds about that coast 

 soils, and the smaller seals. But the story told by the above author Martyr, of 

 that great manati, shows how capable these creatures are of being rendered very 

 familiar ; and how susceptible of impressions, though they really seem as unfit 

 for any kind of education as any other whatever. This author describes the 

 manati very fully; and then tells this remarkable story: 



" A governor, in the province of Nicaragua, had a young manati, which was 

 brought to him, to be put into the lake Guanaibo, which was near his house ; 

 where he was kept during 26 years, and was usually fed with bread, and such- 

 like fragments of victuals, as people often feed fish with in a fish-pond. He be- 

 came so familiar, by being daily visited and fed by the family, that he was said to 

 excel even the dolphins, so much celebrated by the ancients for their docility and 

 tameness. The domestics of this governor named him Matto ; and at whatever 

 time of the day they called him by that time, he came out of the lake, took 

 victuals out of their hands, crawled up to the house to feed, and played with the 

 servants and children; and sometimes 10 persons together would mount upon 

 his back, whom he carried with great ease and safety cross the lake." 



All that is here mentioned of the docility of this manati, does not much sur- 

 pass that of this seal in town. He answers to the call of his keeper, and is ob- 

 servant of his commands ; takes meat from his hand, crawls out of the water, 

 and stretches at full length, when he is bid ; and when ordered returns into the 

 water ; and in short stretches out his neck to kiss his keeper, as often and as 

 long as required. These are marks of a tractableness, which one could hardly 

 expect from animals, whose mien and aspect promise little, and indeed whose 



