THE SEA COW 229 



side of America and has been observed by Dampier"^ with sea 

 bears and sea Hons in the southern hemisphere and by me and 

 others in the northern.* The largest of these animals are 4 

 to 5 fathoms (28 to 35 English feet ""5) jQ^g and 2,^2 fathoms 

 thick about the region of the navel, where they are thickest. To 

 the na\el this animal resembles the seal species ;i^^ from there on 

 to the tail, a fish. The head of the skeleton is in general shape 

 not different "^ from the head of a horse, but when covered with 



Sea Cow, with the Dutch, or Mannetes, with Dampier, from the Spanish 

 language." 



"5 The MS here adds: "which is very remarkable." 



Dampier's observations on the manati all, except one, relate to the 

 tropics within the northern hemisphere. Steller's impression that 

 Dampier describes this animal as occuring at the island of Juan Fernandez 

 in the southern hemisphere is not correct (see, below, footnote 177). 

 Dampier's main discussion of the manati is found in his "A New Voyage 

 Round the World," London, 1697, Ch. Ill (pp. 33-37 in 3rd edit., 1698; 

 pp. 64-67 of Vol. I in Dampier's Voyages edited by John Masefield, 

 2 vols., London, 1906), where he says that, along the Gulf of Mexico 

 and the Caribbean, he has observed them near the mouth of the Tabasco 

 River, in the Gulf of Campeche (separate discussion: Masefield edit.. 

 Vol. 2, p. 205), on the Mosquito coast of Nicaragua, at the Bocas del 

 Toro west of the Chiriqui Lagoon, and among the keys on the southern 

 side of Cuba, and, in the East, at Mindanao in the Philippines and on 

 the coast of Australia (this was on the west coast in about 17° S.). He 

 also says he had heard of their being found on the north of Jamaica and 

 in the rivers of Dutch Guiana. 



* State Councilor Schreber has quite correctly observed in his excel- 

 lent work on mammals, Part 2, p. 276, that Steller's sea cow of the 

 western sea of America has, to be sure, a great resemblance with the 

 manati of the Spaniards but must certainly be considered a separate 

 species, [as it is] differentiated by distinct characters. — P. [The work 

 referred to is J. C. D. von Schreber's (i 739-1810) " Naturgeschichte der 

 Saugetiere," Erlangen, 1775-1824 (continued by Goldfuss and Andreas 

 Wagner) .] 



i« The transformation into English feet is not in the MS. The con- 

 version factor applied by Pallas is evidence that he considered the 

 fathom used by Steller to be the sazhen of 7 feet (see, above, p. 8). 



1*' Instead of "the seal species" the MS reads "a land animal." 



1*8 Instead of "is in general shape not different" the MS reads "is 

 not in the least different." 



