1895.] Florida Manatee, In the Indian River Waters. 787 
The spring and summer of 1894 were so dry that the salt 
water went nearly to the head of the fresh water streams and 
killed out the “ Manatee grass,” of which the Manatee are es- 
pecially fond and the poor brutes had to fall back on the 
leaves of the mangroves, a food not much to their liking, 
which they reach by laboriously dragging their huge bodies 
half out of water. Mr. Gibson spent a great part of that sum- 
mer up the Sebastian where he was catching paraquets, and 
on several occasions he saw the herd of eight feeding in this 
manner. 
The Manatee is an animal of the highest economic value 
and one that the Indian River, with its fresh water tributaries, 
seems able to support in large numbers and it would be more 
than mere sentiment to regret its disappearance should it be- 
come a thing of the past. But there is still a chance for it. 
There are some Manatee alive now in the Sebastian River and 
these have passed through the cold of a winter such as no liv- 
ing man in Florida has known before ; they are protected by 
law, and the netting? has been stopped; and in spite of the 
small annual increase, the female bringing forth but one calf 
a year, it should slowly come up again to something like its 
old numbers. 
2 I regret that I am unable to give a more definite name to this plant, never 
having seen it myself, but it was described to me as a tender ribbon-like grass, 
the blades of which are about half an inch wide and four or five feet long. It 
grows with the ends of the blades and the blossoms resting on the water, and is 
found only ina few of the fresh water streams of southeast Florida, 
3 For a full account of this most successful method of destroying the Manatee, 
see an article in Forest and Stream, XIII, 1880, pp. 1005, 1006, by Mr. J. 
Francis Le Baron. 
