172 R. ETHERIDGE, T. W. E. DAVID, AND J. W. GRIMSHAW. 
senting a large animal, it is not of greater size than the Dugong 
is known to attain. 
The present southern limit of the Degorais is probably Wide Bay. 
although it was formerly to be caught in Moreton Bay. Its 
occurrence on the coast of New South Wales is very rare, indeed 
the late Mr. Gerard Krefft said, “the Dugong is not found on the 
‘coast of New South Wales,” but Dr. E. P. Ramsay states that it 
has been “occasionally observed as far south as the Tweed and 
Richmond Rivers.”? About two years ago Mr. Harry Stockdale, 
exhibited, at the Hotel Australia, a Dugong, which Mrs. Chinnery 
of Hunter Street, of whom the Dugong was purchased, informs 
us was caught in Broken Bay. 
The late Mr. A. W. Scott, speaking of the Dugong’s habits, 
says*:—‘“Tt is only the shallow waters of unruffled inlets and 
creeks, the sheltered mouths of rivers, the bays and the straits 
between proximate islands, that afford the necessary quiet, and 
the abundant submersed marine aliment essential for a permanent 
residence.” This “aliment” is described by Macgillivray, as & 
slender, branchless, cylindrical, articulated seaweed, of a very 
pale green colour.* 
Macgillivray gives® the following description of the method 
employed by the Cape York natives to capture the Dugong :— 
“When one is observed feeding close inshore, chase is made after 
it in a canoe. One of the men standing up in the bow is provided 
with a peculiar instrument used solely for the capture of the 
animal in question. It consists of a slender peg of bone, four 
inches long, barbed all round, and loosely slipped into the heavy, 
rounded, and flattened head of a pole, fifteen or sixteen feet in 
length; a long rope an inch in thickness, made of the twisted stems 
1 Australian Vertebrata—Fossil and Recent, 1870, p- 6. 
2 Cat. Exhibits N. S. Wales Court, Gt. Internat. Pchecien Exhib., 
London, = p. 53. 
ia, Recent and Extinct, 1873, p. 52. 
* Voy. “ Rattlesnake,” 1852, 11., p. 25. 
5 Loe. cit., pp. 24—25 
