NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 175 



26th May. — This day I have seen the first living hip- 

 popotamus that ever gratified the eye in this country ; or 

 indeed, I might add, in Europe, since the time of the 

 later Roman emperors. It appears on a coin of Marcia 

 Otacilia Severa, the wife of Philip, who was elected by 

 the senate and people upon the assassination of the third 

 Gordian. There is a figure of the beast in one of the 

 tombs of Beni Hassan, far up the Nile, and remarkable 

 for its fresco paintings, where the upward curve of the 

 angle of the mouth is very characteristically given.* 



Our specimen was safely lodged in its newly-built 

 apartments last night. When I first saw it, it was in its 

 bath — a spacious and deep tank, with wooden lining, and 

 with steps for the ease of the bather when going in and 

 out, — and put me in mind, as I looked down on the 

 animal's broad rounded back, of a submerged black port- 

 manteau that had by some fairy freak been endowed with 

 motion. It was in the most perfect health, sank and rose 

 gradually, playfully closed its mouth — the action cannot 

 be properly termed biting — on the woodwork at the side ; 

 sank again, and when at the bottom walked leisurely 

 about as if looking for something, wondering, perhaps, 

 why the luxuriant water-plants of Africa were not grow- 

 ing there. After disporting itself some time, it leisurely 

 walked out, and then gave one the idea of a cetacean 

 mounted upon four short pillar-like legs. Its keeper led 

 the way to its sleeping apartment, and the attached 

 animal followed him there like a dog, along the whole 

 length of the giraffe-house to the place where the ostriches 

 were in the winter. The dormitory of the hippopotamus 

 was profusely strewn with clean fresh straw, and the 

 animal having entered it, I had an opportunity of observ- 

 ing him closely. I gently tickled and scratched him 



* A copy of this drawing, by Mr. John McGregor, is given in 

 the Illustrated London News, 25th May, 1850. 



