CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PHYSIOLOGY AND 

 BIOLOGY OF THE DUGONG 



H. DEXLER AND L. FREUND 



The accounts of the habits of the dugong that have hitherto 

 been brought to the notice of naturaHsts are really limited to a 

 detailed description by Klunzinger, who as surgeon on the " Koscir" 

 in the sixties, collected these accounts of the dugong of the Red 

 Sea from the Bedouins. The account in Brehm's Ticrlehen is 

 taken from him. The few who before or after him have had to 

 do with the subject, have added but little that was new. For 

 this reason we are warranted in publishing some very recent 

 observations based on the field notes of one of us (Dexler). In 

 1901, through the generous support of the Gesellschaft zur For- 

 derung deutscher Wissenschaft, Kunst, und Literatur in Bohmen, 

 Dexler was enabled to make a visit of several months to the Coral 

 Sea, and there to attend personally to the captun^ of tlio diii^ong. 

 Incidentally, also, the rare opportunity was aH'nnlcd of ol. serving 

 minutely for forty-eight hours the habits of a captive dugoiii^, and 

 to investigate in life what has hitherto been impossible for us to 

 find out in the case of this animal. 



The low flat coast of East Australia is a favorite haunt of the 

 dugong. Here are broad, shallow })ays clioked with .sand and 

 covered with water at low tide, and connrctcd with tlic outer 

 ocean by numerous channels and pas^aucs. Wrw i> ilic j>huit- 

 bearing sea bottom on which occur the so caUcd "dugong urasscs" 

 that constitute the food of the dugong. These bottoms are the 

 chosen pasture of the dugong and it is one of their permanent 

 occupants, being directly dependent for sustenance upon places 

 of this sort. Wherever there are these eoniHtions, to wliich nuist 

 be added sea wafer and a particular tenipiTatnre, there the .hi-ong 

 will be found as all oh>eners a^ree ,l{iipp.-l. Khni/in::er. I'inM-h, 



if it occurs at all in brackish water at the mouths of rivers, as is 



