Then, by another post, arrived letters from Butzkopf and Dugong, both men whose signatures were familiar to the Teutonic world in the Selten-erscheinende Monat-schrift or Hayrick for the insertion of Split Hairs, asking their Master whether he meant to take up the combat, because, in the contrary case, both were ready.

Butzkopf made it the subject of an elaborate Einleitung to his important work, Die Bedeutung des Aegyptischen Labyrinthes; and Dugong, in a remarkable address which he delivered to a learned society in Central Europe, introduced Merman's theory with so much power of sarcasm that it became a theme of more or less derisive allusion to men of many tongues.

The whole tribe of paddle-steamers, such as seals and walruses and dugongs, are only coasters.

Dugong, The, 439. Eagles, mode of destroying, 381.

* THE DUGONG, THE MERMAID OF EARLY WRITERS.

Of all the cetacea, that which approaches the nearest in form to man is undoubtedly the dugong, which, when its head and breast are raised above the water, and its pectoral fins, resembling hands, are visible, might easily be taken by superstitious seamen for a semi-human being.

A seal of the hair species, like those of Rottnest Island, was seen on the rocks, probably of the same description that Dampier found in the maw of the shark;* and also what was found by the French on Faure Island, which M. Peron supposed to be an herbivorous animal and described as a dugong.

Several grampuses were seen at the anchorage, also many dugongs and turtles.

Her paternal aunt looks after her, and both of them must abstain from eating turtle, dugong, and the heads of fish.

Nor may she eat dugong and turtle.

The first of these is the Australian dugong (Halicore australis), which is the object of a regular fishery (on a small scale however) on account of its valuable oil.

The food of the aborigines consists chiefly of fish and shellfish, to which as subsidiary articles may be added lizards, snakes, possums, various birds, and an occasional kangaroo, turtle, dugong, or porpoise.