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 priv‘~ 
lege of straying about the towns and villages, and of taking their foou 
wheresoever they please, if not sufficiently supplied by the pious contribu- 
ions of the devotees who impose on themselves this charitable office. 
ORDER X.—CETACEA. 
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- 
me; egrs 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.! 
Tuis animal may be indiscrfminately 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, m 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 with a skin, or rather a thick hide, with a few hairs 
or bristles. It isa 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 cf which a very 
lang cord is fastened. The manati feeling itself wounded, instantly swims 
1 Manatus Americanus, Desm. The genus Manatus has two upper incisors ; no canines; 
eighteen upper and eighteen lower motars. The incisors exists only in the foetus, and 
the adults fae onl7 thirty-two teeth, feur of the molars falling out in early age; molars 
with two transverse cushions on their crown; head not distinct from the body ; eyestvery 
small; tongue oval; vestiges of nails on the margin of the pectoral fins; six cervical 
vertebree ; sixteen ptir of thick ribs; mustaches composed of a bundle of very strong 
hairs, directed downwards, and forming on each side a kind of corneous tsk. 
