MAMMALIA. 



307 



crowns, adapted for grinding food. The nostrils are 

 upon the upper part of the snout ; the fore-limbs are 

 fin-like, and they have five fingers ; the hind-limbs are 

 absent, their place seemingly taken by a horizontal, whale- 

 like tail. 



Manatee (Manatidce). The Florida manatee (Fig. 

 332), that is now extremely rare, ranges from the Amazon 



FIG. 332. The manatee, or sea-cow, grazing. 



to southern Florida, and attains a length of nine feet. 

 The tail is horizontal, and semi-oval in shape. Another 

 species is found in Africa. They occasionally come upon 

 the shore. The young, in nursing, are sometimes sup- 

 ported by the flippers of the mother. 



NOTE. Steller's manatee (Rhytina Stelleri) was an Arctic form of 

 gigantic proportions, attaining a length of thirty-five feet, and a weight 

 of nearly four tons. The skin was leathery, the fore-limbs without 

 fingers, but overgrown with coarse hairs ; the tail resembled that of 

 the whale. They had no teeth, but two horny masticating plates, one 

 in the gum and the other in the lower jaw. Herds of these animals 

 were discovered by Stellerat Behring Island in 1741, and twenty-eight 

 years later they were extinct, having been destroyed by man. (For a 

 list of animals that have become extinct within a few hundred years, 

 see article by the author in " Lippincott's Magazine," June, 1883.) 



