The size of the Manatee has been much exaggerated, but there is no trustworthy evidence of its attaining a greater length than 8 feet. Its general external form may be seen in Fig. 71, taken from a living example in the Brighton Aquarium. The body is somewhat fish-like, but depressed and ending posteriorly in a broad, flat, shovel-like, horizontal tail, with rounded edges. The head is of moderate size, oblong, with a blunt, truncated muzzle, and divided from the body by a very slight constriction or neck. The fore limbs are flattened oval paddles, placed rather low on the sides of the body, and showing externally no signs of division into fingers, but with a tolerably free motion at the shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints, and with three diminutive flat nails near their extremities. No traces of hind limbs are discernible either externally or internally; and there is no dorsal fin. The mouth is very peculiar, the tumid upper lip being cleft in the middle line into two lobes, each of which is separately movable, as will be described in speaking of its manner of feeding. The nostrils are two semilunar valve-like slits, at the apex of the muzzle. The eyes are very minute, placed at the sides of the head, and with a nearly circular aperture with wrinkled margins. The external ear is a minute orifice situated behind the eye, without any trace of pinna. The skin generally is of a dark grayish colour, not smooth and glistening, like that of the Cetacea, but finely wrinkled. At a little distance it appears naked, but a close inspection, at all events in young animals, shows a scanty covering of very delicate hairs, and both upper and under lips are well supplied with short stiff bristles. [Illustration: FIG. 72.—Skull of African Manatee (_Manatus senegalensis_). ⅕ natural size. From Mus. Roy. Coll. Surgeons.]