LESSON XLII.

A REAL LIVE MERMAID.

“The waters pushed, the waters swelled,A fisher sat near by,And earnestly his line he held,With tranquil heart and eye;And while he sits and watches thereHe sees the waves divide,And lo! a maid with glistening hairSprings from the troubled tide.”

“The waters pushed, the waters swelled,

A fisher sat near by,

And earnestly his line he held,

With tranquil heart and eye;

And while he sits and watches there

He sees the waves divide,

And lo! a maid with glistening hair

Springs from the troubled tide.”

—Goethe,Trans.

When I was a child I was greatly fascinated with tales of mermaids, fabulous damsels who lived in the ocean. They had beautiful faces and arms, and long, pale green hair, which they combed with golden combs, and decked with sea-weedsand pearls. They swain like fish, and sang most sweetly. When I learned that mermaids were only creatures of fancy, and did not really exist, I felt as if I had been robbed of friends. A few years later a bronzed, wrinkled old fisherman restored to me my mermaids as real creatures, even more interesting than the sea maids of myth. And so there is a real live mermaid!

Where shall we find her? My old sailor said he first met her some miles out at sea, in the latitude of Florida. She was swimming along at ease, her head held above water, and she carried on her arm her baby, whose head she stuck up above the waves.

Was she beautiful? Had she large, lovely eyes? No; her face was something like that of a cow, but instead of the large black eyes of a cow, she had tiny eyes, smaller than those of a pig. But were not her arms beautiful? No; her arms were flat, short, somewhat of an oval shape; in fact, they were flippers rather than arms, though she had free use of the elbow, shoulder, and wrist joints. She had no hands, no fingers, but at the end of each flipper were three small, flat nails. Had she long, waving hair? No; she had a few coarse hairs about her face, and a scanty covering of very fine, short hairs over her body. Could she sing? Unfortunately all real mermaids are dumb. Finally, was she of a sea-green color? Not at all; her skin was very thick, and of a dark gray, finely wrinkled all over, very like the skin of an elephant. Her upper lip was divided into two deep lobes, and she had no lower limbs, but instead a tail, with a wide, strong fin.

Oh, an ugly, horrible creature! By no means; on the contrary, as amiable, mild, gentle, playful, kindly a creature as ever drew breath. A fish, of course! Indeed not: a mammal; a mammal of the sea.

The class mammalia has orders of animals that live in the sea; other orders of creatures that live mostly in the air, and very many other creatures that live on the land, and some that spend their lives under ground. Any animal that suckles its young is a mammal, whether a swimming, flying, walking, climbing, or burrowing creature. The sea mammals are the whales, dolphins, porpoises, dugongs, and this mermaid.

Our mermaid is called by sailors a “sea cow” from the shape of its head and face; a “river calf” from its size and habit of living in rivers; the most common and best name for it is that given it by the early Spanish colonists, the manatee, or handed animal, because it can so skilfully use its fore limbs or flippers.

Once there were manatees in many different parts of the world. They were numerous in the Indian Ocean and in Behring Sea; but they have been so recklessly slaughtered that now the creature is nearly unknown, except a few in Africa near Cape Verde and the Cape of Good Hope; some few along the coast of South America, and those that inhabit the rivers of Florida. The manatee, like the buffalo of the Western plains, is likely soon to be extinct.

The manatees of the Eastern hemisphere seem to have been much larger than those of Florida.[76]Eight or ten feetis the usual length of the American manatee. Efforts have been made to raise the animals in captivity, but they do not thrive. One was kept sixteen months in the aquarium at Brighton, England, and was fed on lettuce, cabbage, turnips, thistles, and dandelions. Let us now look at the animal in its favorite home, the Santa Lucia River in Florida.

Manatees live in droves or herds, and prefer shallow to deep water. When they move up the river they keep well to the centre of the stream, as they are very timid. They rest near to the banks where they find plenty of grass and lily-pads to shelter them. Manatees come from the West Indies and Central and South America to the Santa Lucia River, to rear their young among the thick vegetation. They arrive early in May and remain until late in the autumn.

Here is our manatee; let us take a good look at it. It has a gray wrinkled skin; no fin on the back; a stiff, thick, shovel-shaped tail, with a flat tail-fin; a moderate sized oval head with small eyes; a very small under lip. The nostrils are two slits of a half-moon shape; the ear is a little orifice, set not far behind the eye. The sight of the manatee is good, but its hearing is something extraordinary. Probably no other animal has ears so acute. If a blade of grass or a leaf drops into the water the manatee hears it and darts away, for it is as timid as it is harmless.

To the shoulders of the manatee are attached the flipper-like arms, which it uses so readily. When in shallow water the creature supports itself on the ends of the flippers and the tail, and thus raising its body it moves slowly about the sandy river bottom. Its food is purely vegetable, and it isinteresting to watch it eat. If you notice a caterpillar, or a silkworm feeding on a leaf, you get a notion of the method of the manatee in eating, and its use of its odd double lip.

Hold out a cabbage leaf to a manatee which has been kept in a tank as a pet—for though timid they are affectionate when kindly treated; the gentle beast extends its head toward the leaf, and in so doing parts the lobes of the upper lip, leaving a wide gap. As soon as the leaf is within this space, the lip lobes come together and hold the leaf firmly with their bristly surfaces. Then the lobes draw backwards, and the leaf is thus pushed into the mouth where there are some twelve teeth to chew it. The mermaid has in all twenty-two teeth, but some fall out before others come, so it generally has twelve in its mouth at one time.

While the manatee lives constantly in the water, it breathes air through its nostrils into its lungs. To secure air it comes to the surface of the water once in every three or four minutes. When it thus rises it will blow like a whale and send a spout of spray and water twelve or fifteen feet into the air. It seems to enjoy this blowing; it also enjoys rolling itself on the sand and fine pebbles in the bottom of the stream. It rolls and plunges to cleanse its skin; it is its way of making its toilet. After a roll the manatee rises to the surface, parts its lip lobes, gives a good blow, draws in all the air it can, and returns below.

Lily pods and pads, bananas,[77]a coarse river grass called manatee grass, are its favorite food. A large manatee will eat three bushels of lily-pods in a day.

The manatee is a strong, swift swimmer, and dives with wonderful agility. In its favorite haunt, the Santa Lucia River, the mermaid’s babies are born among the lily-leaves, and in that green and pleasant nursery, the clean white sand for their bed, the fragrant lilies rocking on the water, the butterflies and dragon-flies darting out and in among the shadows, and the birds singing and sporting above them, they live for several weeks. When they are quite small their mothers carry them around in their flippers if they seem tired or do not go fast enough, but the manatee baby can swim as soon as it is born.

Being now very scarce, the manatee is largely increased in value. One fifteen feet long would cost two or even three thousand dollars. A large skeleton is worth a thousand dollars. The hides and flesh have been so much sought after that the creatures have been hunted nearly out of existence. Formerly the Indians made light, strong, and handsome canoes of manatee skins.

The manatee is very hard to kill; being timid, it darts away at the first alarm, and its swimming speed is exceedingly rapid if it is frightened; its thick skin, remarkably large, strong bones, and a thick layer of fat under its skin protect it in a great measure from injury by a bullet. The general method of securing the animal is to drive it into a very large, strong net. One side of the net is sunk to the river bottom, the other rises to the top of the water, and is then drawn about the hiding-place of the manatee. After a little training it will come when it is called, will eat from one’s hand, and likes to be petted and to have its head rubbed.

FOOTNOTES:[76]The rhytina and dugong are not, as some suppose, manatees, but animals closely allied to true manatees.[77]When in captivity.

[76]The rhytina and dugong are not, as some suppose, manatees, but animals closely allied to true manatees.

[77]When in captivity.

Back to Index Next