154 
ORDERS OF MAMMALS— SEA-COWS 
rounded disc, which in swimming forms a power- 
ful propeller. When dry its skin is of a clean, 
slaty-gray color, but in the water it seems almost 
black. The bones are solid and heavy, and the 
ribs are very thick. The largest specimen ever 
taken and preserved in the United States was 13 
feet in length, and must have weighed about 1,200 
pounds. In the summer of 1903, a fine specimen 
about eight feet long was captured under a state 
permit in the Banana River, Florida, and placed 
on exhibition in the New York Aquarium. From 
time to time, others have been exhibited at 
various watering-places along the Atlantic coast. 
The Manatee never comes upon land. Usually 
its home is chosen in the upper waters of some 
deep, quiet tropical river, above the influence of 
the tide, where there is an abundance of manatee 
grass and other water plants acceptable to it for 
food. It is herbivorous, and because its molar 
teeth are weak, and there are no front teeth, it 
is compelled to live upon aquatic plants which 
are tender as well as nourishing. Its food is 
always eaten under water, and when at home, 
its presence is generally revealed by the bits of 
plant stems and grass blades which escape and 
float to the surface. In captivity, the Manatee 
feeds upon lettuce, cabbage, canna leaves, celery 
tops, water-cress, spinach, eel-grass and ocean 
sea-weed. 
Even to-day the Manatee is found in Florida, 
in the Banana, Sebastian and St. Lucie Rivers, 
and its wanton destruction is prohibited by state 
laws, under penalty of $500 fine. Occasionally, 
however, a specimen is netted alive, under a 
state permit, for exhibition purposes. In the 
Sebastian River two of the great cold waves of 
the past ten years unfortunately killed several 
individuals. Farther south it is found about 
the Isle of Pines, Cuba, and along the east coast 
of Mexico, and Central America, while another 
species occurs in South America as far down 
as southern Brazil. The flesh of this animal is 
light-colored, and both looks and tastes like lean 
fresh pork. 
As the result of several years of inquiry, I am 
convinced that, strange as it may appear, in 
Florida the Manatee really is being perpetuated. 
The sentiment in favor of its preservation is 
almost universal, and there is ground for the 
belief that this is largely due to the wise liber- 
ality of the state authorities in granting a rea- 
sonable number of permits to capture specimens 
alive when the animals are ordered at high prices 
for public exhibition. I believe that there are 
more Manatee alive in Florida to-day than there 
were twenty years ago, even though at one time 
the species seemed doomed to speedy extinction 
in the state. 
The Dugong is the only living Old-World rep- 
resentative of the Order Sirenia, and between it 
and the manatee the chief difference is found 
in the whale-like tail of the former. The Austra- 
lian Dugong, which attains a length of 14 feet, 
once was so abundant along the coast of Queens- 
land, between Moreton Bay and Cape York, that 
a regular fishery was established at Moreton Bay. 
The Rhytina, or Arctic Sea-Cow, is of 
special interest to Americans because of the 
important part it played about the middle of 
the eighteenth century in the discovery of Alaska. 
In 1741, the Russian navigator, Captain Vitus 
Bering, was shipwrecked on Bering Island, and 
compelled to winter there. The majority of 
the crew of the St. Peter died of hardship, and 
the remainder also would have perished but for 
the presence of the great Arctic Sea-Cow, then 
seen for the first time. To George William 
Steller, the official naturalist of the ill-fated ex- 
pedition, the world owes all it ever will know of 
the life history of this animal. Despite the suf- 
ferings he endured, he faithfully and laboriously 
reduced to writing everything that he observed 
of the ponderous animal whose flesh sustained 
the lives of the castaways. 
The Rhytina was an animal closely resembling 
the dugong and manatee, but greatly exceeding 
the maximum size of either. Steller declared 
that “ the full-grown animal weighs about 8,000 
pounds,” and from the skeletons that were col- 
lected on Bering Island in 1883 by Dr. Leon- 
hard Stejneger, and now on exhibition in the 
United States National Museum, we know that 
full-grown animals attained a length of between 
20 and 30 feet. 
This species was exterminated by whalers who 
sought it for food, aided by the natives who used 
both its flesh and skin. It was practically ex- 
terminated about 1780, but the last animal was 
not killed until 1S54. (Nordenskiold’s“ Voyage 
of the Vega.”) 
