55 



THE RYTINA. 



The skull of these animals is very singularly formed, the upper jaw being bent down- 

 ward over the lower jaw, and terminated by two large incisor teeth. It is supposed 

 that the object of this structure is to assist the animal in gathering together and 

 dragging up by the roots the algae and other subaqueous vegetation on which it 

 feeds. 



The skin of the Dugong is capable of being manufactured into various useful articles, 

 and the flesh is in some repute, being said to bear close resemblance to veal. 



A THIRD genus of these herbivorous cetaceans is the RYTINA, which is supposed to be 

 now extinct, the last known specimen having been killed in 1768, only twenty-sever* 

 years after the creatures were discovered. 



The Rytina possessed no true teeth, and masticated its food by means of two bony 

 plates, one of which was attached to the front of the palate, and the other to the lower 

 jaw. It was a large animal, measuring about twenty-five feet in length, and nearly 

 twenty feet in circumference. The Rytina was discovered in the year 1741 on an island 

 in Behring's Straits ; and as the animals were large, heavy, and unarmed, they were 

 most valuable in affording food to the unfortunate sailors who were shipwrecked upon 

 that island, and were forced to abide there for the space of ten months. When the 

 islands were visited by ships in search of sea-otters, which abounded in that locality, 

 the crews found the Rytinas to be so valuable and so easy a prey that the entire race 

 was extirpated in a few years. 



The only account of the Rytina is that which was furnished by Steller, one of the 

 shipwrecked party, who, undaunted by the terrible privations which he was forced to 

 undergo, wrote an admirable description of the animal, which was afterwards published 

 in St. Petersburg. 



