steller's account of the sea cow. 183 



Inches. 

 The breadth of the lower lip, which is hairless, black, smooth, and slopes toward the sternum, 



and is heart-shaped 7.40 



Height of the same 6. 80 



From the lower lip to the sternum 54.00 



The diameter of the mouth at the angle {oris froenum) i 20.40 



From the pharynx to the end of the oesophagus 32.00 



The width, or rather length, of the stomach 44.00 



The whole intestinal tract, from phar.ynx to anus 5,968.00 



(And so it is 20^ times as long as the whole animal.) 



From pudenda to anal sphincter 8.00 



Diameter of the trachea below the glottis 4.20 



Height of the heart 22, 00 



Width of the heart 25.00 



Length of the kidneys 32.00 



Width of the kidneys 18.00 



Length of the tongue 12.00 



Width of the tongue 2.50 



' Length of the nipples 4.00 



Width of the humerus 14.50 



Length of the ulna 13. 20 



Length of the skull from nares to occiput 27. 00 



.Width of the occiput 10.50 



DESCRIPTION OF THE EXTERNAL PARTS. 



This animal belongs practically to the sea, and is not amphibious, although some 

 authorities have so narrated; but they have misunderstood the stories of some others 

 who tell of its feeding upon vegetation about the shores of the sea and rivers. But 

 by this was meant not the vegetation of the land, but seaweed that grows out in the 

 water on the shore of the sea. This seemed quite an unwelcome fact (that it fed on 

 seaweed) and most absurd to Celsius Clusius, who had seen a whole hide stuffed with 

 straw; but it is found to be so also in the case of the living beast (strange as it is 

 true), if one will but have regard to its form, movements, and habits. 



It is covered with a thick hide, more like unto the bark of an ancient oak than 

 unto the skin of an animal; the manatee's hide is black, mangy, wrinkled, rough, 

 hard, and tough ; it is void of hairs, and almost impervious to an ax or to the point of 

 a hook. It is an inch thick, and a transverse section of it is very like unto ebony 

 both in smoothness and in color. This exterior cortex, however, is not skin (cutis), 

 but cuticle {cuticula); but in the dorsal region it is smooth. J'rom the nape to the 

 caudal fin the surface is uneven with nothing but circular wrinkles, but the sides are 

 exceedingly rough, especially about the head, and bristling with many cup-shaped 

 prominences like stemless mushrooms (pezicas). This cuticle which surrounds the 

 whole body like a crust is frequently an inch in thickness; and it is composed of 

 nothing but tubules, in the same way as we observe in the Spanish cane or Mambu 

 of the Indians and Chinese {ac in arundine videmus Hispanicove Mambu Indorum et 

 Sinensium). The structure of the.se tubules is perpendicular to the skin. Longitudi- 

 nally they can not be torn or separated from one another. The tubules are implanted 

 in the lower part of the skin; they are roundish, convex, bulbous, and hence pieces 

 of the skin that are torn off from the cuticle are full of tubercles like Spanish bark, 

 and the underlying cutis is excavated with a great many very small holes, likie a 

 thimble (netricum digitale), which were before the receptacles of the bulbous 



