1881.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 129 



York on its way to the Zoological Garden of Philadelphia. I take 

 the occasion also of thanking Mr. Arthur E, Brown, Superintend- 

 ent of the Zoological Garden where the dissections were made, for 

 materially assisting me in the investigation. 



Both the animals were examples of the ordinary species, the 

 Hippopotamus amphibius, and measured about 5 feet 6 inches in 

 length. The female was both the taller and heavier of the two. 

 Her height at the shoulder being 28 inches and weight 550 pounds. 

 She was probably older than the male. The condition of the skin 

 in the female suggested the idea that it had not been sufficiently 

 bathed during the past winter. It is well known that the health 

 of the skin, and of the animal generally, depends upon the free use 

 of water, either in the form of a bath, or where that is not practi- 

 cable, by constant sponging, etc. With the exception of some 

 slight inflammation of the fourth stomach and an apparent hyper- 

 trophy of the left ventricle of the heart, the organs were healthy. 

 The male animal died from an inflammation of the stomach and 

 intestines, the epithelium and submucous tissue in parts of the 

 stomach being stripped off, while portions of the intestine were 

 gangi'enous. The immediate cause of death was a large well- 

 organized clot in the heart. As the myology of Hippopotamus 

 and of Choeropsis have been described and figured by Gratiolet ^ 

 and Macalester ^ respectively, I will not dwell upon this part of 

 the subject, but pass to the consideration of the internal organs. 



Alimentary System, etc. — The tongue of the Hippopotamus 

 (PI. XI, fig. 1) is a long, flattened organ expanded and rounded off 

 at the top rather than tapered. It measured 1 4 inches in length, in 

 breadth 3^ inches at the middle and 5 inches at the top. A t the 

 back of the tongue where one finds the circumvallate papillae in 

 man, in place of these are seen what might be called elongated, 

 thorn}'^ papillae. They do not correspond to either the human 

 filiform or fungiform papillae. The latter were well developed. I 

 did not notice anything peculiar about the submaxillary gland, 

 the sublingual however was absent;^ the parotids were present, 

 but not very well developed, as Gratiolet states was the case in 

 the animals examined by him. The small size of the parotids in 

 the Hippopotamus may be due to the habit of passing so much 

 time in the water ; the necessity of the secretion not being felt, 



1 Op. cit., Planches IV to VIIL ^ Op. cit., pages 496, 500. 



3 Op. cit., p. 384. 

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