The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-07-13 00:00:00

THE MANATEE.

The Daily News of Monday publishes the following letter
respecting the manatee at the Westminster AquariLm ;

Sir,—lt may possibly interest your readers to learn
some details respecting the manatee at present being
exhibited in London. These animals are nearly related
to the whales on one band and to the hoofed gnadru-
pe,ls on the other. They agree with the whales and
differ from the seals in tee absence of mid-limbs, and
in the possession of a horizontal tail-fiu • but their
nostrils; are never used as " blow-holes." The
manatees, moreover, are estuarine in habits, and live
on shallow coast-lines in the intertropical regions on
the Atlantic coast of South America and Africa. The
popular name of "sea cows" is applied to the
manatees, which, with another genus of animals—the
ougongs (halicore)—form the order Sirenia. It need
hardly be mentioned that these animals are as
truly mammals as are whales, seals, walruses. They
have warm blood, breathe by lungs, and possess a
hairy covering, which, however, is very slightly deve-
loped. The name Sirenia, applied collectively to the
dugongs and manatees, is derived from the tact that
these animals exhibit the habit of sitting in a semi-
erect posture in the water, their appearance in this
position suggesting to the imaginative nautical mind
the tales of sirens and mermaids. The illusion is pro-
bably heightened by the fact that these animals flex
the "flippers," or paddle-like fore-limbs over the chest,
and they are also said to hold the young to the breast
in this fashion. No outer ears exist, and the
nostrils can bo closed at will. The eyes are of
small size, and the swimming paddles are situated
far forward on the body, and apparently just
behind the head. Rudimentary nails exist on the
outside of the swimming paddles as evidence of the
skeletal composition ot its terminal parts, which neces-
sarily correspond to fingers. The present is not the
first occasion on which a live manatee has been brought
to Loudon. After two unsuccessful attempts in
1866, the Zoological Society imported one in 1875.
The latter was a female animal hardly full-grown,
and lived for a considerable time in the seal tank,
tended by the lately deceased veteran keeper of
these animals. To the comparative anatomist the
manatee is interesting en several grounds. It has a
vertebtte less in the neck than the vast majority of
mammals; man and the giraffe both possessing
seven whilst the manatee has but six—a pecularity
shared ny Hoffman's sloth alone. The apex or
tip of the manatee's heart is deeply cleft, as in the
dugong, and the lungs are exceedingly long. The
general public of London may profit by the present
exhibition in studying an animal rarely seen alive in
England, whilst comparative anatomists, in no spirit
of ' waiting for dead then's shoes," may rejoice to
think that there exists the prospect and opportunity,
sooner or later, of repeating the classic researches of
Dr. Muria on the famous "Sea Cow" of naturalists,
and the " Siren " and " Mermaiden" of mythical
lore.—l am, Sir, yours, &c., ANDREW WILSON.—
Edinburgh School of Medicine, Surgeons' Hall, Edin-
burgh, July 3.

It is said that the manatee cost £7OO and the
creature is so gentle and docile that it may be expected
to become very tame if it lives. That which was
brought to the Regent's Park in 1875 took food from
it's keeper's hand a few hours after its arrival. And
Aldrovandus tells us, on the authority of Franciscus
de G-omara, an old Spanish historian, that a small
manatee, caught off the Island of Hispaniola and
placed in an inLind lake, would come to the shore
when called by its name, "Mato," take food from
the hand, and, permitting boys and even men to
mount on its back, would swim off with them to the
other side of the lake. Mr. Barnum, in 1862, suc-
ceeded in taming a White Whale so far that it would
allow itself to be harnessed to a car, and draw a young
lady seated therein round its tank. As the manatee
is quite as intelligent and teachable as a whale, we
may possibly see this mermaid rivalling his relative,
the elephant at the Zoological Gardens, in giving
little boys a ride on his back. This would please the
public, but the lesson that men of science would
learn from it at the same time would be invaluable.—
court Journal.