MERMAIDS AND MERPIGS 
piscem.” The tail is quite fishlike, especially the 
forked tail of the dugong, and the hind limbs being 
absent the resemblance is heightened. The corre- 
sponding legends of beautiful and marine maidens in 
temperate climes must be mothered upon seals. Indeed 
the amount of ‘‘ combing ”’ done by the seal with the aid 
of its flippers is possibly the explanation of the invari- 
able possession of a comb by a mermaid. The looking- 
glass is not so easy to account for. The manatee isa 
black-coloured animal with but little hair on the body, 
and with a pair of flippers which bear no nails in a form 
that has been on two occasions exhibited at the Zoo, 
and which on that very account is known to zoologists 
as Manaius inunguis. The hind limbs have gone save 
for rudiments beneath the skin. There is no beauty 
in its countenance ; this is hindered by a curiously 
split upper lip, which allows the animal to manipulate 
its vegetable food, which it crops in submarine pastures. 
“Merpig ’’ would be really a more suitable name for 
this creature, as 1t undoubtedly comes nearer to the 
ungulates than to any existing group of mammals. 
It has not, it is true, ‘the inn’ards of a Christian,” 
which for some reason or other the pig is regarded as 
possessing. Its stomach is perhaps more like that of 
a cow, inasmuch as it is complicated by division into 
several chambers, as is indeed not infrequent in vege- 
table feeding animals. The chief internal feature of 
the manatee is its huge lungs, which perhaps are “‘ con- 
trived a double debt to pay ’’—lungs when above, and 
a swimming bladder when below the water. The 
manatee has no engaging ways and tricks to attract 
the visitor ; it simply grazes with bovine stolidity. 
THE CARNIVORA OR FLESH-EATING MAMMALS 
It is hardly possible to mistake the members of this 
order of the mammalia. Their claws are sharp and 
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