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Se Pee ae E E IS AT PAENT EIIE FERT 
7 ae 
1878. ] The Sirenia. 293 
Hemisphere much beyond lat. 30°, and they are common in the 
greatest numbers in the equatorial and warmer temperate zones. 
Manatus latirostris is found in San Domingo and other parts of 
the West Indian Islands, on the Atlantic coast of Florida and 
sparingly along the Gulf of Mexico, down to the neighborhood 
of Honduras, where it gradually merges into Manatus australis, 
which follows the northern and eastern coast of South America 
to lower Brazil, reaching not much beyond the 20th degree of 
south latitude. 
Crossing the South Atlantic, Manatus senegalensis is first found 
on the western coast of Africa, about the upper part of Senegambia, 
from which. point it ranges southward along the Atlantic coast, 
around the Cape of Good Hope and up the east coast as far as 
the Mozambique Channel. Here the first representative of the 
dugongs, Halicore dugong, makes its appearance, about where 
the last species ends, and ranges up the east coast of Africa, 
along both shores of the Red Sea andthe southern coast of Asia 
as far as Cochin China; taking in Borneo and the leading islands 
of the Indian Archipelago lying to the westward of the Straits of 
Lombok, which marks strictly the boundary line between the 
Indian fauna and that of the Australian region. The one remain- 
ing species, Halicore australis, ranges along the northern shore of 
Australia and down the eastern coast of that continent, which is 
washed by the waters of the South Pacific, to about latitude 30° 
south. It was stated by Hernandez that he had found an animal 
Supposed to be either H. dugong or H. australis on the coast of 
Peru and Ecuador. Individual members of the order have also 
been seen on several occasions in the neighborhood of the British 
Islands; it is probable that these belonged to M. /atirostris and 
that they were transported by the Gulf Stream from Florida or 
the West Indies. It is thus seen that the polar extremes in range 
of the Sirenia are about the 30° of latitude, north, in the United 
States, and the 35°, south, at the Cape of Good Hope. 
They live generally about the mouths of rivers and are even 
found up the streams to a considerable distance from the coast, 
rarely being common in water of more than several fathoms 
depth. It is stated also that in Africa they inhabit fresh water 
lakes near the coast,—this is not, however, beyond dispute and is 
doubtful, except by supposing a water communication with the 
main sea. All are strictly herbivorus, feeding on the water plants _ - 
which grow in great profusion in the localities which a a 
