140 MK. A. H. GAEEOD ON THE MANATEE. 



I may mention that the power of moving the slightly exserted elbow was consider- 

 able, whilst that of the wrist was small but apparent. It used its limbs much more 

 freely than do the Seals, sometimes employing the extreme margins of the paddles to 

 assist in introducing food into the mouth, at others employing them in progression 

 along the bottom of the pond, during which time the swimming-tail could not be 

 brought into play to any extent. 



The Manatee came into my hands within an hour or so of its death, and one of the 

 earliest things that seemed desirable to do was to obtain some of its blood for examina- 

 tion. The first cut through the skin was sufficient to prove how different an animal it 

 is from any of the Pinniped Carnivora ; for instead of the muscles being of a deep 

 almost black-red hue, as they are in the Seals, they were of a pale pink, more like veal 

 or pork than any other flesh known to me, much ligliter than beef. 



The blood-disks are circular and non-nucleated, as it was certainly known they would 

 be. Their size, however, is their peculiarity. From the valuable investigations of 

 Mr. Gulliver, which are incorporated in their entirety in the Society's ' Proceedings ' 

 for 1875 (p. 474 et seq.), it is known that the largest mammalian blood-disks are 

 found in the Elephants (-s-yVs of ^'^ ii^ch in diameter), Great Anteater (awg); Sloths 

 (tsVs")! Aard-vark {-^gg), and Walrus (27^69)- In the Manatee the diameter of 

 the largest reaches 2X00 o^ ^"i inch, others being considerably smaller. 



If there is any stress to be laid on the size of the blood-disks in the classification of 

 animals, as it seems almost impossible that there should not be from the comparative 

 constancy in their size in closely allied species and genera, then the relationships of the 

 Manatee to the Artiodactylate Ungulates must be most distant, as small size of blood- 

 disks is a special peculiarity of those latter animals, the largest being 4^0 of ^11 inch 

 in diameter, namely in the European Bison [Bison honassus). In the Elephant and 

 Edentates, on the contrary, the blood-disks are particularly large. 



With reference to the digestive organs there is not much for me to add to previous 

 descriptions. In the stomach of our specimen the plications of the mucous membrane 

 were slightly diflFerent from the figures given by Dr. Murie. Several well-marked, 

 though not large longitudinal folds run along the lesser curvature of the first cavity 

 from the cardiac orifice to the entrance of the second. These are bounded on the 

 vertebral and ventral faces of the organ by a large, similarly directed fold, which imper- 

 fectly separates off the irregularly plicated portion in connexion with the greater cur- 

 vature from that in the region of the lesser. The mucous membrane of the second 

 stomach is raised into rounded anfractuous folds, much like those of the human 

 cerebral surface. The muscular parietes of the whole organ are very thick, extra- 

 ordinarily so at the cardiac end. There is no pyloric dilatation of the duodenum. 

 The intestines in their muscularity are very cat-like. A large number of vessels, 

 forming quite a rete mirabile, is to be found at the ileo-csecal valve, in the angle 

 between the large and small intestines. As Dr. Murie states, the cseca and the 



