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IX. On the milk tusks , and organ of hearing of the Dugong. 
By Sir Everard Home, Rart. V. P. R. S. 
Read April 13th, 1820. 
I have found nothing that so much promotes the enquiry 
respecting those animals with which we are little acquainted, 
as laying before the public the materials, however scanty they 
may be, that have been already procured. 
By making those materials generally known, naturalists 
have their minds awakened to the enquiry, and are not only 
more disposed, but better able to take advantage of such 
opportunities as come within their reach, to advance our 
knowledge of that subject. 
This at least has happened in so great a degree with respect 
to the fossil bones of the Proteosaurus, of which very little 
was known at the time I laid my first observations upon them 
before the Royal Society, that I am induced to make a similar 
trial respecting the Dugong, which, I believe, has never been 
seen of its full size, by any one conversant in comparative 
anatomy. 
On the present, as well as on former occasions, it is not 
the whole structure of the animal that has attracted my no- 
tice, but such parts of it as differed in form from similar parts 
in other animals most nearly allied to it ; as I consider that all 
peculiarities of this kind are deserving of the notice of this 
Society, since they bring to our knowledge a new construc- 
tion of parts, and therefore make us acquainted with animals 
