the
precise language of Murie in the Proceedings of the London Zoological
Society, vol. 8, p. 188: "In the absence of pinna, a small orifice, a
line in diameter, into which a probe could be passed, alone represents
the external meatus." In the dried museum specimen this slit is wholly
invisible, and even in the live or freshly killed animal it is by no
means readily apparent. Keen observer of natural objects, as savage and
barbaric man certainly is, it is going too far to suppose him capable of
representing an earless animal--earless at least so far as the purposes
of sculpture are concerned--with prominent ears. If, then, it can be
assumed that these sculptures are to be relied upon as in the slightest
degree imitative, it must be admitted that the presence of ears would
alone suffice to show that they cannot have been intended to represent
the manatee. But the feet shown in each and all of them present equally
unquestionable evidence of their dissimilarity from the manatee. This
animal has instead of a short, stout fore leg, terminating in flexible
fingers or paws, as indicated in the several sculptures, a shapeless
paddle-like flipper. The nails with which the flipper terminates are
very small, and if shown at all in carving, which is wholly unlikely, as
being too insignificant, they would be barely indicated and would
present a very different appearance from the distinctly marked digits
common to the several sculptures.

Noticing that one of the carvings has a differently shaped tail from the
others, the authors of the "Ancient Monuments" attempt to reconcile the
discrepancy as follows: "Only one of the sculptures exhibits a flat
truncated tail; the others are round. There is however a variety of the
lamantin (_Manitus Senigalensis_, Desm.) which has a round tail, and is
distinguished as the "round-tailed manitus." (Ancient Monuments, p.
252.) The suggestion thus thrown out means, if it means anything, that
the sculpture exhibiting a flat tail is the only one referable to the
manatee of Florida and southward, the _M. Americanus_, while those with
round tails are to be identified with the so-called "Round-tailed
Lamantin," the _M. Senegalensis_, which lives in the rivers of
Senegambia and along the coast of Western Africa. It is to be regretted
that the above authors did not go further and explain the manner in
which they suppose the Mound-Builders became acquainted with an animal
inhabiting the West African coast. E