1897.] 



ox THE AWATOMY Or A MAJTATEE. 



47 



3. Notes upon the Anatomy of a Manatee [Manatus 

 immguis) lately living in the Society's Gardens. By 

 Frank E. Beddard, M.A., F.R.S., Prosector to the 

 Society. 



[Eeceived January 18, 1897.] 



The young male Manatee acquired by the Society in 1896 died, 

 on Oct. i:9th o£ the same year, from what appeared to me to be 

 a very pronounced form of pleurisy. In the course of my 

 experience at the Society's Gardens I have never seeu so enormous 

 a development oi; pus as this animal showed in and outside of 

 one (the left) lung. When the organ was cut open — it could be 

 seen, before the diaphragm was removed, to be extraordinarily 

 distended — a mass of pus, without any odour and of the consis- 

 tence of a stifE solution of flour atul water, was exposed. There 

 were several (perhaps tliree) pints of this matter. The other lung 

 was apparently healthy and no particular signs of disease were 

 noted elsewhere among the viscera. It is true that the rectum 

 was distended with feeces, but the gut was not in any way patho- 

 logical in appearance. 



As has already been noted ^ the specimen which forms the 

 subject of my communication to the Society is to be distinguished 

 from the better known American species by the total absence of 

 nails upon the hand. The most careful examination afl'er death 

 of the animal failed to show even indications of nails. It appeared 



Manatus iniinffuin, S ji"- 



to me also to differ from Manatus latirostris, as described by 

 Murie " and Garrod ^ in the comparatively slight development of 

 the two rounded lateral processes of the upper lip, which come 

 together in the middle line when a leaf of its food is seized by the 



1 P. Z. S. 189(5, p. 212. See for a comparison of the three existing species of 

 Manatee, 01. Hartlaub, " Beitrage zur Eenntniss der Manatus-Arten," Zool. 

 Jahrb. i. 188G, p. 1 ; and for a brief notice of some of the viscera of Manatus 

 inunguis, A. von Pelzeln, " Brasilische Saiigetbiere," Verb. k.k. zool.-bot. Ges. 

 Wien, Beiheft zu Bd. xsxiii. 1883, p. 88 (from Natterer's MS.). 



2 " On the Form and Structure of the Manatee," Trans. Z. S. viii. p. 127. 

 ^ "Notes on the Manatee, &c.," ibid. x. p. 137. 



