298 The Sirenia. [ May, 
according to age; it is stated that the full number in the adult 
dentition of Æ. australis is twenty-four, and twenty in H. dugong. 
The habits of all the sirenians, so far as is known, are essentially 
similar, the dugong as well as the manatee being found around 
the mouths and up the water courses of the coast. 
This order affords a most striking instance of the discovery 
and speedy extinction of a species, the Rhytina borealis, or stelleri of 
some authors, having been discovered on Behring’s island in the 
sea of Kamschatka, by one of Behring’s exploring parties, which 
was shipwrecked there in 1741. They existed in large numbers, 
were easily killed, and during the ten months which the ship- 
wrecked party spent on the island, sad havoc was made among 
the animals. They were rapidly reduced in numbers, and in 
1768, twenty-seven years after they became known to civilized 
man, the last one was killed. Almost all that is known of the 
living animal is from an account published in 1751, at St. Peters- | 
burg, by Steller, who was one of the discovering party, and who 3 
saw it in its native haunts. ; 
The Rhytina was about twenty-five feet long, had a forked tail like 
that of the dugong, and was covered with a rough, wrinkled, brown- 
ish hide nearly an inch thick, composed of hair-like tubes agglu- 
tinated together into a substance somewhat like horn, and of so 
great toughness that it scarcely yielded to a blow of an axe. The 
adult animal was entirely devoid of teeth, and had in their stead 
a rough horny plate on the front of the palate, to which was 
opposed a similar one on the lower jaw. 
The Sirenia are of considerable value to the natives of the 
countries which they inhabit; the hide is of use for making 
a thick leather, and the flesh is much esteemed for the table. 
It is said that the church, disagreeing with nature and science, 
determines that the manatee is a fish, and therefore the good 
Catholics of South America feast royally on its flesh on Friday 
and all other fast days. 
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