o; with an Account
of the Anatomy of the Teredo navalis. The former he proposes to call the
Teredo gigantea. The sea-grass, or ladang laut, concerning which Sir
James Lancaster tells some wonderful stories, partakes of the nature of a
sea-worm and of a coralline; in its original state it is soft and shrinks
into the sand from the touch; but when dry it is quite hard, straight,
and brittle.

FISH.

The duyong is a very large sea-animal or fish, of the order of mammalia,
with two large pectoral fins serving the purposes of feet. By the early
Dutch voyagers it was, without any obvious analogy, called the sea-cow;
and from the circumstance of the head being covered with a kind of shaggy
hair, and the mammae of the female being placed immediately under the
pectus, it has given rise to the stories of mermaids in the tropical
seas. The tusks are applied to the same uses as ivory, especially for the
handles of krises, and being whiter are more prized. It has much general
resemblance to the manatee or lamantin of the West Indies, and has been
confounded with it; but the distinction between them has been ascertained
by M. Cuvier, Annales du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle 22 cahier page 308.*

(*Footnote. "Some time ago (says Captain Forrest) a large fish, with
valuable teeth, being cast ashore in the Illana districts, there arose a
dispute who should have the teeth, but the Magindanoers carried it."
Voyage to New Guinea page 272. See also Valentyn Volume 3 page 341.)

WHALE.

The grampus whale (species of delphinus) is well known to the natives by
the names of pawus and gajah mina; but I do not recollect to have heard
any instance of their being thrown upon the coast.

VOILIER.

Of the ikan layer (genus novum schombro affine) a grand specimen is
preserved in the British Museum, where it was deposited by Sir Joseph
Banks;* and a description of it by the late M. Brousonet, under the name
of le Voilier, is published in the Mem. de l'Acad. de Scien. de Paris for
1786 page 450 plate 10. It derives its appellation from the peculiarity
of its dorsal fin, which rises so high as to suggest the idea of a sail;
but it is most remarkable for what should rather be termed its snout than
its horn, being an elongation of the frontal bone, and the prodigious
force with which it occasionally strikes the bottoms of ships, mistaking
them, as we may presume, for its enemy or prey. A large fragment of one
of these bones, which had transfixed the