SIRENIA. 



547 



The color of the Bottle-nosed Dolphin is rather different from that of the common 

 Dolphin. Its back is not of the same jetty hue, but is deeply tinged with purple, its 

 flanks are dusky, and the under portions are grayish-white, and do not glisten with the 

 pure silvery-white of the ordinary Dolphin of our coasts. 



Although it is a rare animal, it has more than once been captured upon our coasts, 

 one specimen having been taken in the river Dart in Devonshire, and another in the 

 river at Portsea. Two more Bottle-nosed Dolphins, a mother and "her young one, were 

 caught upon the sea-coast near Berkley, where they had been seen for several days 

 haunting the neighborhood. The first of these specimens was captured when it had 

 ascended the river about five miles, and was so powerful and active that it did not 

 resign its life until it had fought for a space of four hours against eight men armed 

 with -spears and guns, and assisted by dogs. While struggling with its foes it bellowed 

 loudly, making a sound like that of an enraged bull. This individual was more than 

 eleven feet in length. 



In many instances the teeth of the Bottle-nosed Dolphin are extremely blunt, a 

 circumstance which was once thought to be peculiar to the species. Mr. Bell, however, 

 proves to the contrary by the fact of possessing two skulls of Bottle-nosed Dolphins, 

 in which the teeth are of the usual length, and as sharp as in the ordinary Dolphin, 

 When the teeth are thus worn down, the creature is unable to interlock them rightly, as 

 the narrow portion of the teeth has been ground down, and the interstices are too narrow 

 to receive the wide stumps. The name of Blunt-toothed Dolphin has been given to this 

 animal on account of the supposed normal shape of the teeth. The lower jaw of this 

 species projects rather beyond the upper. 



THERE is a curious animal belonging to this family, which inhabits the Ganges, and 

 is known by the name of the Soosoo. 



It is remarkable for the curious shape of its " beak," which is long, slender, com- 

 pressed at the sides, and is larger at the extremity than in the middle. The number of 

 its teeth is about one hundred and twenty. It is a swift and powerful, but at the same 

 time a sluggish animal, appearing to partake largely of the curious mixture of sloth and 

 energy which is found in the huge lizards that frequent the same river, and never car- 

 ing to exert itself except in chase of its prey. Its color is grayish-black upon the 

 back, and white on the abdomen. The eye is wonderfully small, being only one-eighth 

 of an inch in diameter in a Soosoo which measures four or five feet in length. There 

 is no dorsal fin, its place being indicated by a small projection. 



SIRENIA. 



THE small but singular group of animals that are classed together under the title of 

 the SIRENIA, are so formed that anatomists have had much difficulty in deciding upon 

 their proper position in the animal kingdom. Many parts of their structure exhibit so 

 strong an affinity to the pachydermate, or thick-skinned mammalia, that they have been 

 placed next to the elephants by some zoologists, while their fish-like form and aquatic 

 habits have induced other writers to place them in the position which they now occupy 

 in the British Museum. They feed chiefly on vegetable substances, and find the greater 

 part of their subsistence in the thick herbage that edges the waters where they reside. 

 Their nostrils are placed at the extremity of the muzzle, as is the case with most mam- 

 malia, and they are never employed as blow-holes, after the manner of the cetaceans. 



THE MANATEE, or LAMANTINE, is a very strange-looking creature, appearing like a 

 curious mixture of several dissimilar animals, the seal and the hippopotamus being 

 predominant. 



There are several species of Manatee, two of which are found in America and one in 

 Africa, but always on those shores which are washed by the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. 



