HIPPOPOTAMUS. 



HIPPOPOTAMUS. 



lot 



of AruU. and 



pn>Ubly 

 a 



i of UM gnat water-plants which abound 



" Ofaayeeh ""n*"nr* about one hundred pound* weight daily of 

 hay, chalT. corn, route, and green food. For the firrt Tear he was fed 

 ahnoet entirely on cow's milk and Indian corn meal finely ground ; 

 and Uwrs is no doobt whatever that any of the great animals, 

 !! illy called Pachyderms, such a* the Elephants and Rhinoceros, 

 %! he reared by resident* in Africa with perfect success in the same 

 MMer. The African Elephant and UM African Rhlnooero* are still 



" The Hippopotamus now only exists in Africa ; it is found in the 

 riirm of UM south and wart, a* well a* in the Nile; and there is also in 

 MM of the weetern riven a pigmy species, of whose skull a cast was 

 pres.nted to the Society by the late Dr. Morton of the United States." 



A hippopotamus has also been recently exhibited iu the Jardiu des 

 Pl*nt7m Paris, but it died a few month* after it* arrival. 



On Saturday. July 22nd. 1854, a second specimen, a female, of this 

 hrts rial Ing animal wa* safely deposited in the Gardens of the Zoolo- 

 gical Society. At this date it was about four months old, and weighed 

 bore a too. It was fed by it* keeper opening its mouth with his 

 hand, which he thrust down its throat, covered with milk and corn- 

 mail. It wa* ascertained that this creature was not insensible to 

 sic, and when any one of the musician* on board the vessel in 

 which it was brought, played his instrument near it, she invariably 

 nised her head in the attitude of listening. Tbe keeper, also an Arab 

 Make-charmer, was in the habit of exciting the attention of his chargn 

 by a kind of uiunical call, which it answered by vibrating it* great 

 bulk to and fro with evident pleasure, keeping time to the measure of 

 Li* keeper's eong. 



The USM of the Hippopotamus to man are certainly not many, but 

 when we look at the enormous ripping cbiurl like canines of the lower 

 jaw, and the lower incisor* formed for uprooting, we cannot but think 

 that such an animal must be an active agent in clearing rivers from 

 the greater water-plant* which might in time, if left undisturbed, go 

 far to convert tbe running stream into a sluggish iwamp. With 

 regard to minor details, the flesh of this Waiter Ochs is much esteemed 

 a* an article of food. In the first catalogue of the African MuAum 

 we n-ad that it is much in request both among the natives and the 

 colonists, and that tbe epicures of Cape Town do not disdain to use 

 their influence with tbe country farmer, to obtain a preference in the 

 matter of Sea-Cow's Speck, a* the fat which lies immediately under 

 UM skin i* called when salted and dried. Nor are the whips which 

 are made of the akin of the Hippopotami of the Nile thought lightly 

 of in the neighbouring countries. They are said to be made by cutting 

 the fresh akin into triangular strips some five or six feet in length : 

 one extremity of the strip is pointed, and it gradually widens till the 

 breadth at the opposite extremity is equal to the intended circum- 

 ference of the bulk of the whip. The strip is then rolled up so a* to 

 form a sort of conical pipe, is firmly tied to keep it in place, and dried 

 in UM eon. When all is finished a light and elastic whip is produced. 

 Bat then i* no part of the hippopotamus in more request than the 

 great canine teeth, tbe ivory of which U so highly valued by dentists 

 for making artificial teeth. No other ivory keeps its colour equally 

 wrll ; and these canine teeth are imported in great numbers to this 

 country (where more are sent in the first instance than anywhere else 

 perhaps) for this purpose, and sell at a very high price. From the 

 olosstisM of the ivory, the weight of the tooth, a portion only of which 

 is available for the artificial purpose above mentioned, is heavy iu 



" 'Ion to iu bulk ; and the article fetches, or did fetch, upon an 



, about thirty shillings, more or law, per pound. One of the 

 ) distinction* pointed out by M. Desmoulins is the comparative 

 abrasion of the canine* in tbe supposed two species ; and we would 

 call UM attention of the curious who deal in these teeth to this 

 drtamsUnw and the papers above quoted. 



feml Hippopotami. 



The remain* of several specie* of Hippopotamus have been found 

 which art now rxtincU Amongst other*, the following have been 

 recorded : //. nn/iV/mu, //. miner, II. malou, and //. minim**. These 

 have been f.uud in Uie tertiary beds of Europe. A larger specie* 

 than any of these ha* been found in Great Britain, and identified by 

 Pniienwi Owen with //. major, Cuv. The following notice of this 

 pente* ocean in hi* ' HUtory of British Fossil Mammals :' 



" In glancing rctrapcetiveiy toward* the dawn of the scientific 

 -"kalion of foasil remains, one I* (truck with the early iutroduc- 

 the idra that the Hippopotamus bad contributed to those 

 in UM temperate latitudes of Europe : this amphibious quad- 

 MMtf sma* in (sot to have been tbe Ant to which large fossil bones 

 and teeth were referred, after the notion that they were relic* of giants 

 ft**"""*" I"""* **> o be exploded. 



UM learned 8axon scholar Somner acquaint* us that some 

 " ^J "** *** ClMlhM fc" * WCT o* opinion that they were 

 * a rivei-banc; and the antiquarian DougU* misinterpreted 

 in like manner the jaw and teeth of a rhinoceros, much of the 

 tow speculation* In hi* Dissertation on the Antiquity of the 

 not ba*ed on UM assumption that the fluviatile deposit* at 



Chatham, in the instance which he describe*, had yielded ' hippopo- 

 tauiio remain*.' 'When we consider,' he says, 'the great distance 

 from tbe Medway to the Nile, or other rivers near the tropics where 

 these kind of animals are now known to inhabit, and when we have 

 no authority from the Pentateuch to conclude that any extraordinary 

 convulsion of nature had impelled animal* at that period from their 

 native regions to countries so remote, so we have no natural inference 

 For concluding that the deluge was the cause of this phenomenon. 

 Taking into consideration the geological feature* of the stratum of the 

 river soil, he concludes ' that, as the hippopotamus is known to be 

 the inhabitant of muddy riven like those of the Nile and the Medway, 

 it should therefore argue that this animal was the inhabitant of those 

 regions when in a state of climature to have admitted of its 

 existence.' 



" This conclusion is essentially correct, though based in the pre- 

 sent instance on wrong premises : neither the organic remains from 

 Chatham, any more than those from Chat-thorn, having appertained 

 to a ' river- or sea-bred creature.' The genus of land-quadrupeds to 

 which these fossils actually belonged is nevertheless at the present 

 day a* much confined to the tropics as the hippopotamus. No long 

 time elapsed before true hippopotauiic remains were found in the same 

 deposits which had yielded the bones and teeth of the rhinoceroses. 

 It was most probably from fresh-water marl that the entire skull of 

 the hippopotamus was obtained, which is stated iu Lee's ' Natural 

 History of Lancashire ' to have been found iu that county under a 

 peat-bog, and from which work Dr. Buckloud has copied tbe ligure 

 given in plate xxii., rig. 5, of the ' Reliquiae Diluviaua;.' From the 

 indication of the second pre-molar in this figure we may, I think, 

 discern the greater separation of that tooth from tbe third pre-molar, 

 which forms one of the marks of distinction between the fossil and recent 

 hippopotamus. Mr. Parkinson, in the third volume of his ' Organic 

 Remains,' 4to., 1811, p. 375, treating of the Hippopotamus, says, ' In 

 my visits to Walton, in Essex, I have been successful in obtaining some 

 remains of this animal.' These fossils are now in the museum of the 

 Royal College of Surgeons, and are referrible to the extinct species sub- 

 sequently determined by Cuvier in the second edition of the ' Os* 

 Fossiles,' under the name of Uijijtoputamut major. The first specimen, 

 cited by Mr. Parkinson as ' an incisor of the right side of the lower 

 jaw,' is the great median incisor, which when entire must have beeu 18 

 inches in length. It has lost much of its original animal matter, and 

 is considerably decomposed. This tooth may be distinguished from 

 the straight inferior tusk of the Mastodon by its partial investment 

 of enamel ; or when this is lost, as in the decayed specimen from the 

 till at Walton, by the tine concentric lines on the fractured surface of 

 the ivory, the corresponding surface iu the tusk of the Mastodon pre- 

 senting the decussating curvilinear striae. The second specimen from 

 Walton is thus described by Mr. Parkinson : ' The point of an inferior 

 canine tooth or tusk, measuring full nine inches in circumference, and 

 having seven inches in length of triturating surface.' From the great 

 size of this tooth it is very likely to have belonged to the same animal 

 to which the preceding tooth belonged. Besides the longitudinal 

 stria; and grooves observable in the enamel of its sides and interior 

 parts, it is characterised by strong transverse rugous markings, which 

 are placed at nearly regular distances of about two inches, and ore 

 observed to exist in the same manner on the fragment which joins 

 to it The third specimen described in that work is a fragment of 

 the left lower canine tusk of a young hippopotamus ; it hod scarcely 

 come into use, and the pulp cavity exteiuU to near the apex of the 

 conical and unworn crown. From the absence of the transverse 

 rugous markings in the enamel, and the roundness of the circum- 

 ference of this first-formed portion of the tusk, Mr. Parkinson was 

 induced to suspect that it might have belonged to the small hip- 

 popotamus ; but similar modifications are observable in the recently- 

 protruded tusk of the young African hippopotamus, and are doubtless 

 due to the immaturity of the individual of the fossil species which 

 yielded this small tusk. 



" Mr. Parkinson says, ' Remains of the Hippopotamus have been 

 found, I am informed, iu some parts of Gloucestershire,' and prior to 

 the publication of the third volume of the ' Organic Remains,' Sir 

 Everord Home had deposited in the museum of the College of Sur- 

 geons a tooth the third pre-molar, right side upper jaw of the 



major, Cuv., which hod been dug up in u field called 

 DurlifM, in the parish of Leigh, five miles west of Worcester. Mr. 

 Strickland's valuable observations ou the tluviatile deposits in the 

 valley of the Avon, have confirmed these indications of the remains of 

 the hippopotamus iu that locality, and have thrown much light on the 

 conditions under which the extinct species of that now tropical genus 

 of Pachyderms formerly existed iu the ancient waters that deposited 

 those sands. Mr. Parkinson lastly cites the remarkable discovery by 



Mr. Trimmer of the remains of the hippopotamus iu the fresh-water 

 deposits at Brentford, an account of which Mr. Trimmer afterwards 

 communicated to the Royal Society, with excellent figures of the' 

 principal fossils of the hippopotamus and of those of the mammoth, 

 rhinoceros, and a large deer therewith associated. 



" These sjiecimens were collected in two brick-fields ; the first about 

 half a mile north of the Thames at Kew Bridge, and with its surface 

 about 25 feet above that river at low water. Tbe strata here are : 

 1st, sandy loam, from BIX to seven feet, the lowest two feet slightly 



