49tJ On the Great Rorqual of the Indian Ocean. [No. 5, 



" In Morton Bay and on the neighbouring coast the aborigines 

 eagerly pursue the Duyong, a species of small Whale, generally 

 known to the colonists as the ' Sea-pig.' This animal has a thick 

 smooth skin, with a few hairs scattered over its surface. Its colour 

 is bluish on the back, with, a white breast and belly.* In size the 

 full-grown male has never, we believe, been found more than eigh- 

 teen or twenty feet long. The food of the Duyong consists chiefly 

 of marine vegetables, which it finds at the bottom of inlets, in com- 

 paratively shallow water, where it is easily captured. Its flesh re- 

 Some of the sailors of the expedition that Peron accompanied were once 

 " alarmed by a terrific howling which resembled the roaring of a bull, but much 

 stronger, and seemed to come from the neighbouring reeds." This was near the 

 Swan Eiver ; and it may be remarked that Mr. Fraser, in his description of the 

 Swan Eiver, when it was surveyed by Capt. Stirling in 1826, notices that — 

 " while attending to a boat on the river, I distinctly heard the bellowing of some 

 huge animal similar to that of an Ox, from an extensive marsh further up the 

 river." Peron justly remarks that " this terrific roar could only belong to one 

 of those great animals which the Indian Ocean nourishes within its seas ; but of 

 all those with which we are acquainted, the Dugon alone presents analogous 

 dimensions to the terrific noise which it makes." 



Now the Arabs described to Dr. Rtippell that the Duyong of the Red Sea had 

 a feeble voice ! 



The Australian Duyong is met with on the north coast of that island-continent, 

 within the great barrier reef, at Swan River on the western side, and at Morton Bay 

 on the eastern. It certainly appears to be a distinct species from that of the Malayan 

 seas ; but additional species to these two are less satisfactorily established, and the 

 total disappearance of these animals from the vicinity of the Mascarine Islands 

 is worthy of attention, and may be borne in mind with reference to the extra^ 

 ordinary fact of the seeming extinction of the Rytinus Stelleri in the N. Pacific 

 We want information, however, respecting Duyongs at the various coral groups 

 of the Indian Ocean, within ten or twelve degrees of the equator. The same 

 species may well inhabit the whole of them. It is remarkable that the Malays 

 consider that two species of these animals exist. Vide Proc. Zool. Soc. 1838, 

 note to p. 43. 



* M. F. Cuvier figures the Malayan Duyong of an uniform pale slaty or plum- 

 beous colour, with some darker blotches on the sides. In the Atlas to the Voy- 

 age of the Astrolabe, the Duyong is figured of a pale fulvous hue with white 

 under-parts, which laterally are blotched with the colour of the back. Hardwicke 

 figures it of an uniform slaty-black, albescent on the head (unless this be meant 

 for shine or reflected light). There is a wood -cut shewing the mode in which the 

 female carries her young in Sir J. E. Tennent's work on Ceylon. 



