GREA T IRISH DEERSTELLERS SEA-CO W. 247 



beneath the surface on aquatic plants, as the terrestrial herbivorous 

 mammals feed upon the green pastures on land. 



Not a few of the tales of mermen and mermaids owe their 

 origin to these creatures, as well as to seals, and even walruses. 

 The Portuguese and Spaniards give the Manatee a name signifying 

 * " Woman-fish," and the Dutch call the Dugong the " Little 

 Bearded Man." A very little imagination, and a memory only 

 for the marvellous, doubtless sufficed to complete the meta- 

 morphosis of the half-woman, or man, half-fish, into a siren, a 

 mermaid, or a merman. Hence the general name Sirenia. 



The Manatee (Manatus} inhabits the west coast and rivers of 

 tropical Africa, and the east coast and rivers of tropical America, 

 the West Indies, and Florida. 



The Dugong (Halicore) extends along the Red Sea coasts, the 

 shores of India, and the adjacent islands, and goes as far as the 

 northern and eastern coasts of Australia. 



The most remarkable Sirenian is the Rhytina gigas, or 

 " Steller's Sea-Cow." Early in 1885 the trustees of the British 

 Museum acquired a nearly complete skeleton of this animal, now 

 extinct, from peat deposits in Behring's Island, of Pleistocene 



FIG. 58. Skeleton of Rhytina gigas (Steller's "Sea-Cow"), from a peat 

 deposit, Behring's Island. 



age. Formerly it was abundant along the shores of Kamtchatka, 

 the Kurile Islands, and Alaska. It was first discovered by the 

 German naturalist, Steller, who,, in company with Vitus Behring, 

 a captain in the Russian Navy and a celebrated navigator of the 

 northern seas, was with his vessel and crew cast away upon 

 Behring's Island (where Behring died) in 1741. Steller's original 



