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In this, at least, he is probably correct, and the following reasons are deemed sufficient to show that, whether the several sculptures figured by one and another author are otters or not, as here maintained, they most assuredly are not manatees. The most important character possessed by the sculptures, which is not found in the manatee, is an external ear. In this particular they all agree.
The great manatee mother didn't seem to mind me a bit, as she swam around us two or three times, but I squirmed a good deal when that tremendous tail, which was moving so slowly, came opposite me, and I wondered if it was going to mash me as flat as a sheet of paper, or only knock me over the tops of the mangroves. But that scare was nothing to the next one.
As in the Cass of the manatee, it has been thought well to introduce a correct drawing of a toucan in order to afford opportunity for comparison of this very striking bird with its supposed representations from the mounds. For this purpose the most northern representative of the family has been selected as the one nearest the home of the Mound-Builders.
It turned a look of savage rage towards us, seeming to doubt whether it should let go the manatee and stand on the defensive, or continue the strife. The way it held the sea-cow gave us a notion of its immense strength. Gradually the efforts of the manatee began to relax. It was very clear how the combat would have finished had we not been present.
Almost instantly the creature lifted its head so far above the surface that Ned dropped his paddle and seized the soft nose of the manatee with both hands. "Look out!" yelled Dick, but he was the one to have looked out. For, as the sea-cow threw down its head and tail, Ned was dragged out of the canoe onto his upward-arching back.
The possibility of the manatee having in past times possessed a wider range than at present seems to have been overlooked.
Conceding that the figure as given by Short affords a rude hint of the manatee, the question is how to account for its presence on this the latest representation of the tablet which, according to Short, Mr. Guest, its owner, pronounces "the first correct representations of the stone."
The rhytina attained a length of between thirty and thirty-five feet, and a weight of 6,000 pounds or over. The flesh of this animal, like that of the manatee and dugong, must have been edible, and surely was prized by the hungry sailors and natives of its time. It is not strange that such a species was quickly exterminated by man, in the arctic regions.
In this class are found the ant-eaters, sloth, manatee, the whale and porpoise, the horse, cow, sheep, and other hoofed animals; the elephant, seal, the dog, wolf, lion, tiger, and all flesh eating animals; the hares, rats, mice, and ail other gnawing animals; the bats, moles, and other insect-feeders; then come the great family of apes, from the small monkeys up to the orang-outang, chimpanzee, and other forms nearly approaching man.
It appears common enough, on the coast of Tabasco and Honduras, at the mouths of rivers, to find the manatees swimming in the sea, as crocodiles do sometimes. Dampier distinguishes between the fresh-water and the salt-water manatee. Half a mile east of Cayo Flamenco we passed close to two rocks on which the waves break furiously.
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