382 SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. 



island in Behring's Straits in 1741, where the latter died, Steller 

 saw vast numbers of the Rhytina, called, after him, Steller's sea- 

 cow, or vache marine, pasturing in the shallows along the shore 

 and collected in herds like cattle. As they fed they raised their 

 hea"ds every four or five minutes to breathe, before descending to 

 browse on the thick beds of seaweed surrounding the coast. 

 When full-grown, Steller says they attained a length of thirty -five 

 feet and a weight of three or four tons, so that it required forty 

 men to drag the body of one to land. Steller's report of their 

 being good for food led to their complete annihilation, within the 

 short space of forty years, 1741-1781; for when subsequent 

 investigators visited Behring's and Copper Islands for the purpose 

 of securing specimens, they did not find a single living one, or any 

 of its bones. It was not till nearly a century later that a skull 

 was obtained for the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petei's- 

 burg, enabling Brandt to write his masterly monograph, entitled 

 Symholce Sirenologicm?- So little, indeed, was known of the animal 

 at this time, that we find naturalists describing the Rhytina as a 

 gigantic Manatee, giving it the name of " Le Grand Lamantin de 

 Karnschatka". Cuvier was the first to distinguish it as a separate 

 species, preserving, however, the name Lamantin, and calling it 

 Lamantin du nord ; while Illiger grouped these animals apart, 

 and distinguished the three species. Manatee, Halicore, and 

 Rhytina, placing them between the seals and Cetacea. 



Within the last few years two living Manatees have been 

 brought to this country-; one lived in the Zoological Gardens, 

 where it died in 1889 ; the other flourished for several months at 

 the Westminster Aquarium, till one cold day in March its keeper 

 carelessly left the plug of its tank drawn, the water drained away, 

 and the poor animal caught such a severe chill that it never 

 recovered. 



Dr. Woodward, who has kindly revised this note, adds the 

 following: — 



1 Mem. Imp. Acad. Set. St. Petershnrg, 1846, vime ggrie, pt. ii ; Sci. 

 Nat., vol. V, livr. iv, pp. 1-160, tab. i-v. 



2 See the admirable Memoir by Dr. J. Murie, F.L.S., Trans. Zoul. 

 Soc., vol. viii, p. 167, 1872. 



