Of this family, one of the most remarkable animals on the coast is the dugong[1], a phytophagous cetacean, numbers of which are attracted to the inlets, from the bay of Calpentyn to Adam's Bridge, by the still water and the abundance of marine algæ in these parts of the gulf. One which was killed at Manaar and sent to me to Colombo[2] in 1847, measured upwards of seven feet in length; but specimens considerably larger have been taken at Calpentyn, and their flesh is represented as closely resembling veal. [Footnote 1: _Halicore dugung_, F. Cuv.] [Footnote 2: The skeleton is now in the Museum of the Natural History Society of Belfast.] [Illustration: THE DUGONG.] The rude approach to the human outline, observed in the shape of the head of this creature, and the attitude of the mother when suckling her young, clasping it to her breast with one flipper, while swimming with the other, holding the heads of both above water; and when disturbed, suddenly diving and displaying her fish-like tail,--these, together with her habitual demonstrations of strong maternal affection, probably gave rise to the fable of the "mermaid;" and thus that earliest invention of mythical physiology may be traced to the Arab seamen and the Greeks, who had watched the movements of the dugong in the waters of Manaar. Megasthenes records the existence of a creature in the ocean, near Taprobane, with the aspect of a woman[1]; and Ælian, adopting and enlarging on his information, peoples the seas of Ceylon with fishes having the heads of lions, panthers, and rams, and, stranger still, _cetaceans in the form of satyrs_. Statements such as these must have had their origin in the hairs, which are set round the mouth of the dugong, somewhat resembling a beard, which Ælian and Megasthenes both particularise, from their resemblance to the hair of a woman: "[Greek: kai gynaikôn opsin echousin aisper anti plokamôn akanthai prosêrtêntai"][2] [Footnote 1: MEGASTHENES, _Indica_, fragm. lix. 34,] [Footnote 2: ÆLIAN, _Nat. Hist._, lib. xvi. ch. xviii.] The Portuguese cherished the belief in the mermaid, and the annalist of the exploits of the Jesuits in India, gravely records that seven of these monsters, male and female, were captured at Manaar in 1560, and carried to Goa, where they were dissected by Demas Bosquez, physician to the Viceroy, and "their internal structure found to be in all respects conformable to the human."[1] [Footnote 1: _Hist, de la Compagnie de Jésus_, quoted in the _Asiat. Journ._ vol. xiv. p. 461; and in FORBES' _Orient. Memoirs_, vol. i. p. 421.]