The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-10-21
WISDOM TAUGHT
 BY THE SEA BULL
Creature Doomed to Die Does
 Not Complain
.EUL0GY ALREADY FRAMED
Speared by Fisherman, the Mana tee Appreciates Surgeon Who Probes the Wound-Ani-
 nal Is Harmless.
From the New York World.

From the New York World.
 Doomed to breathe only a few months more, young. dark-gray sea COW, or more properly sea bull. leads a life of marine luxury within a white tiled pool in the Aquarium. The experience of all his kind which have been captured by man shows that this strange and little understood creature of tropical waters does not long survive transplantng from its southern home
 A framed >placard which Director Townsend has had placed on the railing of the tank, reads as follows:
 "MANATEE OR SEA COW. AIanatus Latirostrls) Central and South America, Florida. Reaches length of B feet. rm-blooded air breathing, milk-glvlng. plant-eating, harmless water animal Gse- ful for food, oil and leather. Presented by A. W. Dimock. Marco Fla"
 According to the director and his as- sistants, 1t was thought seven years ago that the manatee was extinct in Florida Then some person discovered one in an interior stream, and the Florida legisla- lure humanely passed a law making it illegal to catch sea COW without per init from the county authorities
 The present manatee is the fifth of his species that has had the honor of occu- pying quarters in the Aquarium, and will nave the glory of curtaing his life in captivity that he may be an object les son to hundreds of thousands of grown ups and children, who otherwise would never have known what a real lair breathing, milk-giving, plant-eating, harmless water animal is like.
 Necrooqy of Captlves.
 The necrology of the Aquarium shows that the first specimen of the sea COW was received on September B. 19O3 sur viving five months and one day. On June O. l9O4, were received a pair of manatees male and female The smaller of the twain lived eight months and the larger ten months and eleven days, which Is the record of captivity fin the New York Fish Institute Eighteen months is the worlds record of a manatee confined within building, but they have been known to live longer in a pool in the woods.
 The fourth sea COW. the biggest of all, weighing BIO pounds and measuring ten feet six inches in length, arrived in the Aquarium on July 31 last summer It lived only eight days. and during that time partook of no food whatever
 Notwithstanding the law, human nature is so cruelty bent on destroying and tor menting defenseless brute creation In it's wild state that nearly every specimen that has been brought here has shown one or more wounds inflicted by spear thrusts. Fishermen wantonly hunt and stab these gentle and fated survivors of disappearing family as if they were roaring monsters or venomous reptiles
 Manatee No was suffering from some ugly wounds, which, with great age an enfeebled condition and the fatigues of the Journey in a steamer up the coast fn,- hastened its end
 No. Is young, strong and vivacious. but he, too, was discovered to have n spear wound near the tail The edges of his tall and the skin on his snout are also bruised from his knocking about in the box.
 Surgeons Visit Welcome.
 Every day at D. m. Washington I. De Nyse, who has charge of the rare crea- ture, probes the wound and dresses both 1t and the scared extremities. The min ute water is drawn off the manatee, hay ing no ribs at all to protect its vlscera, | instinctively Hops over upon it's back re- maining in this position until the water Is again turned on, to protect and support | its internal organs, when it turns right side up again. The bull knows that probe and application are remedial. He lies quite still or turns upon his left side uplifting the wound to the surgeon.
 Lying upon his back the sea bull looks | more like hog than a bull. The fore 1 fippers, the only ones he has, are the | "hog's ears.' The snout is much like that of porlIer, while the fat round | body, covered with short hairs, slopes and tapers away until it ends In one 1 great wide thin. rounded tall. like a paddle or single blade of propeller. | Within the mouth of the manatee are some thick plates, the use of which has not as yet been discovered, while the creature has really three lips. or, more | strictly, an upper lip. which is divided into two hairy mats which can be worked | up and down independently of each other l thus enabling the beast to draw in it's supper of eel grass without moving the under lip at all As it lies upon It's back | the eyes are invisible.
 Director Townsend predicts that the greatest peril to this delicate mammal will be pneumonia. Every eight or ten minutes the manatee comes to the sur | face to breathe, and the minute 1t gets a sniff of frost over 1t rolls with pneu- | mona.
 | Strict attention is required to maintain the water at the proper temperature, but l it Is matter of greater difficulty to keep | the temperature of the building at the | proper height for the susceptible sea bull catches cold. not from the water but | from the air In the coming winter nights a canvas screen will be stretched around the rim of the pool and the top will be covered with glass to exclude the | cold air.
 | Two feeds of Gravesend Bay eel grass | are served every day to the Florida ex- | otc. He never eats it all at once. DOT l tion floating off on the surface, which he l hauls into his three-sided mouth leisure | ly He consumes about fifteen bushels l of eel grass a month.
 He was trapped by Alligator Joe.' | rolled into a sail boat and taken to Palm | Beach, fed with cabbage, lettuce and the | water hyacinth found in the St. Johns river and shipped up the coast in a box 1 filled with water.