270 MOSTLY MAMMALS 



one of which, the Cyprian H. minutus, had much the 

 proportions of the Liberian species, although its molar- 

 teeth are of a simpler type. Possibly these small forms 

 may have been more or less completely terrestrial in their 

 habits. 



The three Indian species have been already sufficiently 

 discussed, while mention has been likewise made of the 

 Burmese hippopotamus. The latter species, by the way, 

 was decidedly pig-like in many parts of its structure, and 

 may well, therefore, have been a marsh-haunting animal. 

 It was at one time thought that one of the later Indian 

 hippopotamuses was an unknown animal referred to in 

 Sanscrit literature, but further investigation has shown 

 this view to be untenable. Eastwards of Burma, we are 

 unaware that there is any evidence of the existence of 

 these animals, and they appear to have been always 

 unknown in the New World. 



Although it is possible that in Madagascar Lemerle's 

 hippopotamus may have been exterminated by human 

 agency, such an explanation will not hold good with regard 

 to the other fossil species. So far as can be seen, India and 

 Burma are now in every way as well fitted to be the 

 dwelling-places of hippopotamuses, giraffes, and ostriches as 

 they were during the Pliocene period, when those animals 

 either wallowed in their lakes and rivers, or stalked over 

 their plains ; and as the former countries have not been 

 completely swept during the interval by a glacial period, 

 it seems impossible to divine the reason why these creatures 

 should have so completely vanished from the one area 

 and have survived in full strength in the other. 



