296 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



by entirely trustworthy people that in swimming cattle 

 across a river savage hippos had been known to assail and 

 kill them, wholly without provocation. After we left 

 Africa an English official we had met was upset in a canoe 

 by a hippo and then carried off by a crocodile. Usually 

 there is no sport in hippo shooting; it needs nothing but 

 good marksmanship, and, as the brain is the target, accu- 

 racy and penetration are the only qualities demanded in 

 the rifle. Ordinarily, from the circumstances of the case, 

 there is not the slightest danger in hippo shooting; yet 

 Colonel Roosevelt was once resolutely charged by a hippo 

 which he shot in shallow water; with jaws open it came 

 straight for the boat, which was between it and deep water. 

 A wounded hippo will sometimes attack the boat of its as- 

 sailant; and in rare cases an unusually truculent animal will 

 charge out of the water and try to reach the hunter on land. 



Hippos feed on land at night, as a rule, although we 

 once saw two tearing up and eating water-lilies, or some 

 plants that were among water-lilies, in the late afternoon. 

 Naturally they find corn, beans, melons, and other garden 

 products particularly attractive, and if they are plentiful 

 will destroy the crops of all villages which lie along the 

 water-front. 



Once on the Nile while two of us were watching a moni- 

 tor stealing crocodile's eggs we noticed a hippo in mid- 

 stream. Although it was in the forenoon, when most 

 hippos were resting, it appeared above water at about two- 

 and-a-half-minute intervals, in the same place, breathed, 

 and sank. This continued for an hour. The current was too 

 rapid for him to rest; and it hardly seemed that he could 

 be feeding on anything. We do not know what he was doing. 



