Emily Dickinson Lexicon

MA-NA'TI, or MA-NA'TUS, n.

Names, like that of sea cow, applied to several different and distinct animals; some of them belonging to the seal tribe, and some of them to the whale tribe, as Trichecus Rosmarus, and Manatua Americanus and Senegalensis. The animals called by these names, that belong to the seal tribe, are carnivorous, and those that belong to the whale tribe, are herbivorous.