106 AUSTRALIAN ZOOLOGY. 
Ducone.—Halicore australis. 
Introduction.—(Town and Country Journal:) Many years ago, 
when the brig Lady Denison, of Sydney, was engaged in the beche- 
de-mer fishery on the coast of northern Queensland, one of her hands, 
a white sailor new to the work and to that part of our coast, was one 
day seen running along the beach to the boats in a state of great 
excitement. Imagining that the man was being pursued by some of 
the ferocious Cape Melville blacks, the officer in charge of the boats, 
followed by his men, went to his rescue. For some minutes the 
excited seaman could not speak, but at last he managed to tell him 
that about half a mile away, lying among some sea grass, he had 
seen a ‘‘ party of mermaids!” They were, he said, rolling about 
and disporting themselves, and one of them had raised her head and 
shoulders out of the water and looked at him, He was so terrified 
at this that he fled along the beach as fast as his legs could carry 
him. ‘‘ Why,” said the officer, ‘t have you never seen any dugongs 
before?” It is said that the dugong mother constantly holds fast to 
her young with her pectorals, and in ancient times this gave rise to 
the traditions about sirens or mermaids. 
Description.—The dugong is referred to a distinct herbivorous 
order of the mammalia, known as the Sirenia. In aspect it some- 
what resembles a porpoise or other cetacean, having a smooth, sub- 
cylindrical body, a broadly flattened tail, two anterior flippers, 
which are short, thick and fleshy, and atrophied hind limbs. No 
dorsal fin, however, distinguishes it, while the head, unlike the 
sharp-pointed head of the porpoise, has a distinctly rounded muzzle, 
and the mouth of the male is armed with projecting tusk-like 
incisors. The skin is thick and smooth, having a few scattered 
hairs ; its colour above being slaty or brownish-black, below lighter. 
The total length of the adult is from 8 to 10 feet, but it occasionally 
attains as much as 12 feet. 
Habits.—The dugong or Australian sea-cow is a more prea, 
marine animal than the manatee. Its habits are essentially social, 
the animals assembling in herds of from half a dozen to thirty or 
forty, or more, individuals, the females being always’much more 
numerous than the males. The young are produced singly at varying 
periods of the year. The mother dugong, when nursing her young, 
is in the habit of raising herself, and at such times presents a remote 
resemblance to a human being. Probably the ‘‘ mermaid” that had 
so terrified the sailor belonging to the Lady Denison was engaged in 
fulfilling her maternal functions, when he happened to catch her 
looking at him. 
Food.—For many years an idea was prevalent that dugongs 
were able to go on shore at will, to browse on grasses and other 
‘terrestrial plants, but a cursory examination of their weak fore- 
limbs, coupled with the total absence of even the internal rudiments 
of hind limbs, should have been sufficient to have at once dispelled 
a view so incompatible with the structure of the animal. The food 



