392 MAMMALIA — MANATI. 



although they consider it the height of impiety to eat of their flesh. A 

 select number are, however, exempted from all services, and have the privi- 

 lege of straying about the towns and villages, and of taking their food 

 wheresoever they please, if not sufficiently supplied by the pious contribu- 

 tions of the devotees who impose on themselves this charitable office. 



ORDER X. — GET ACE A. 



These animals have a pisciform body, terminated by a caudal appendage, 

 cartilaginous and horizontal ; two anterior extremities formed like fins, 

 having the bones which form them, flattened and very short ; head joined 

 to the body by a very short, thick neck ; two pectoral or abdominal mam- 

 mae ; ears with very small external openings ; brain large ; pelvis and bones 

 of the posterior extremities represented by two rudimentary bones lost in 

 the flesh. 



THE MANATI. 1 



This animal may be indiscriminately called the last of beasts, or first of 

 fishes. It cannot be called a quadruped ; nor can it entirely be termed a 

 fish. It partakes of the nature of the fish by its two feet or hands ; but the 

 hind legs, which are almost wholly concealed, in the bodies of the seal and 

 morse, are entirely wanting in the manati. Instead of two short feet and a 

 small narrow tail, which is placed in a horizontal direction in the morse, 

 the manati has only a thick tail, spread out broad like a fan. Oviedo seems 

 to be the first author who has given any sort of history or description of the 

 manati ; he says, " it is a very clumsy and misshapen animal, the head of 

 which is thicker than that of an ox ; the eyes small, and the two feet or 

 hands are placed near the head, for the purpose of swimming. It has no 

 scales, but is covered Avith a skin, or rather a thick hide, with a few hairs 

 or bristles. It is a peaceable animal, and feeds upon the herbage by the 

 river sides, without entirely leaving the water, swimming on the surface 

 of it to seek its food. The hunters practise the following method to take 

 the manati ; they row themselves in a boat or raft as near the animal as 

 possible, and dart a very strong lance into it, to the end of which a very 

 long cord is fastened. The manati feeling itself wounded, instantly swims 



' Manatus Americanus, Desm. The genus Manatus has two upper incisors ; no canines ; 

 eighteen upper and eighteen lower molars. The incisors exists only in the foetus, and 

 the adults have only thirty-two teeth, four of the molars falling out in early age ; molars 

 with two transverse cushions on their crown ; head not distinct from the body ; eyes very 

 small ; tongue oval ; vestiges of nails on the margin of the pectoral fins ; six cervical 

 vertebrae ; sixteen pair of thick ribs ; mustaches composed of a bundle of very strong 

 hairs, directed downwards, and fornting on each side a kind of corneous tusk. 



