THE LIVING WORLD. 
123 
most recent systems of classification they have been assigned to an order by them¬ 
selves. The sirenia are slow-moving, herbivorous, harmless creatures, whose 
ancestors belong to the fossiliferous periods. They have been commemorated 
in poetry and fable, being the creatures celebrated under the name of mermaids, 
about which so many interesting fables have clustered. Behring, for whom 
Behring’s Strait was named, had with him on his voyages a naturalist whose 
study of the sirenia was so careful as to result in his names being given to 
the Rhytina stelleri , Steller's Rhytina , or Northern Sea-Cow. The species then 
abounded in the 
vicinity of Kamt- 
chatka, but is now 
substantially ex¬ 
tinct. The creature 
had a length of up¬ 
wards of twenty-five 
feet; had a dark, 
hairless, thick skin; 
its tail resembled a 
pair of whalebone 
flukes, and its small 
head was ornament¬ 
ed by a bristled 
snout. It fed upon 
sea-weed and pre¬ 
ferred to move about 
in herds (whence, 
possibly, its com¬ 
mon name)! It 
seems to be strictly 
monogamous, and 
the father, mother 
and two cubs of dif¬ 
ferent ages gener¬ 
ally kept together 
as a family. It was 
easily tamed, and 
when the sailors and 
natives did not kill 
it for its flesh they 
frequently converted 
it into an affection- 
ate pet. No living specimen of this species has been found during the last 
hundred years, as the destruction of the animals resembled the wicked carnage 
which, but for the interposition of legislation, would have converted the American 
buffalo into an extinct species. Few governmental institutions are so unobtru¬ 
sively useful as the Smithsonian, and, upon visiting Washington, one should 
visit its museum, which to make this remark relevant, contains various remains 
of the Rhytina stelleri. c . r . 
The Sirenia, called Manatees, are found on the west coast ot Africa, on 
