242 WHALE-TAILED TftlCIIECHUS. 



time to time, perch on their backs, in order to 

 pick the insects which they find upon them. 



They continue in the Kamtschatkan and Ame- 

 rican seas the whole year; but in winter they are 

 very lean, so that one may count their ribs. They 

 are taken by harpoons fastened to a strong cord ; 

 and after they are struck, it requires the force of 

 thirty men to draw then on shore. Sometimes, 

 when they are transfixed, they will lay hold of the 

 rocks with their paws, and stick so fast as to leave 

 the skin behind before they can be forced off. 

 When a Manati is struck, its companions swim 

 to its assistance; some will attempt to overturn 

 the boat, by getting under it; others will press 

 down the rope, in order to break it; and others 

 will strike at the harpoon with their tails, with a 

 view of getting it out, which they often succeed 

 in. They have no voice, but make a noise, by 

 hard breathing, like the snorting of a horse. 



They are of an enormous size : some are twenty- 

 eight feet long, and eight thousand pounds weight : 

 but, if the Mindanao species be the same with 

 this, it decreases in size as it advances southward, 

 for the largest which Dampier saw there Aveighed 

 only six hundred pounds. The head, in proportion 

 to the bulk of the animal, is small, oblong, and 

 almost square: the nostrils are filled with short 

 bristles : the gape or rictus is small : the lips are 

 double: near the junction of the two jaws the 

 mouth is full of white tubular bristles, which serve 

 the same purpose as the laminae in Whales — to 

 prevent the food from running out with the 



