THE MAISTATEBS: SIZE AND W:BIGHT. 117 



Size of the Florida Manatee. — In treating of the size of the American Manatees, it will 

 be necessary to consider the two species separately, although the adults seem to attain nearly 

 equal proportions. Harlan gives, as the uiaximum'leugth of the Florida Manatee, eight or ten feet, 

 but these measurements were not made by himself.' Mr. W. A. Oonklin, director of the Central 

 Park menagerie, in New York City, gives the following dimensions of a specimen kept alive in that 

 establishment in 1873: "The following are its absolute dimensions: length, 6 feet 9J inches; cir- 

 cumference around the body, 4 feet 9 inches; length of flipper, 1 foot; width of same, 4J inches; 

 width of tail joining body, 1 foot 6f inches; greatest width of tad, 1 loot 8J inches; weight, 450 

 pounds." ^ 



I am not aware that any other measurements of the Florida Manatee, under its proper name, 

 are on record. 



Size and weight op the South American Manatee. — The size of the South American 

 Manatee has been differently estimated by different observers. "This Creature," says Dampier, 

 " is about the bigness of a Horse, and 10 or 12 foot long. ... 1 have heard that some have 

 weighed above 1200 L. but I never saw any so large." ^ 



Stedman, alluding to a Manatee which floated past his encampment on the river Cottica, in 

 Surinam, says: "This Manatee was exactly sixteen feet long, almost shapeless, being an enormous 

 lump of fat, tapered back to a fleshy, broad, horizontal tail"^ 



Smyth and Lowe captured a Manatee in 1835 in Peru, at their encampment at Sarayacu, on 

 the Ucayali. "We had one opportunity," they relate, "while at this place, of examining a vaca 

 marina, OT manatee, that was just caught; but, not being' anatomists, are unable to give a scientific 

 account of it. The animal was seven feet eight inches long from the snout to the tip of the 

 tail. . . . This was not considered a large one. . . . When the animal was killed, it 

 took the united strength of at least forty men to drag it up from the water to the town, which they 

 effected by means of our ropes." ^ 



In 1872 Dr. Murie published a valuable memoir oi^ tbe South American Manatee, in which he 

 gives measurements of two specimens which reached London in 1866, fresh but not alive. Tbe 

 length of one, a young male, from the Maroni Eiver, in Surinam, was forty eight inches or four 

 feet; that of the second,specimen, a young female, from Porto Eico, sixty-five inches,. or five feet 

 five inches. In his remarks on these animals. Dr. Murie says: "When studying in the Stuttgart 

 Museum, I derived much information from Professor Krauss, the able director. Among other 

 things he mentioned that their'large stuffed specimen of Manatee vvas the mother of our Society's 

 young male, as attested by Herr Koppler, of Surinam, who transmitted it. The length of the female 

 mounted skin I ascertained to be 122 inches [ten feet two inches], therefore twice and a half the 

 length of the young animal possibly six or eight months old. Another stuft'ed male specimen at 

 Stuttgart measures 94 inches. Both of the above are doubtless stretched to their fullest extent; 

 still, one is justified in assuming the adult Manatus to be from 9 to 10 feet long."'' Of the weight 

 of the specimens he remarks: "According to Mr. Greey, the entire carcass of the Zoological 

 Society's female, when weighed immediately after death on board ship, was 228 lbs. That of the 

 young male as ascertained by myself was 61 lbs."° 



'Harlan: Fauua Americana, 1825, p. 277. 



' Conklin: The Manatee at Central Park, iu "Forest and Stream," i, 1874, p. 166. 

 'Dampier: A New Voyage round !he World, i, 170J, pp. :i3, 34. 

 ■•Stedmak: Narrative of an expedition to Surinam, ii, 1796, p. 175. 

 'Smyth and Lowe: Journey from Lima to Pa,ra. London, 1856, p. 197. 



•Murib: On the form and structure of the Manatee. Transactions Zoological Society of London, viii, 1873, pp. 

 129-131. 



