105 



HIPPOPOTAMUS. 



HIRUNDINID^E. 



106 



calcareous ; this yields no organic remains. 2nd, sandy gravel a few 

 inches thick, with tluviatile shells and a few bones of land animals. 

 3rd, loam, slightly calcareous, from one to five feet ; between this and 

 the next stratum peat frequently intervenes in small patches of only a 

 few yards wide and a few niches thick : here bones and horns of ox and 

 deer occur, with fresh-water shells. 4th, gravel containing water; 

 this stratum varies from two to ten feet in thickness, and is always 

 deepest in places covered by peat ; in it were found the remains of 

 the mammoth, teeth of the hippopotamus, and horns and teeth of 

 the aurochs. This stratum like the fresh-water deposits at Clacton, 

 with similar mammalian fossils, rests upon the Eocene London clay, 

 the fosssilg of which are, as Mr. Trimmer correctly observes, ' entirely 

 marine.' 



" The first stratum in the second brick-field is a sandy loam, calcareous 

 at its lower part, eight or nine feet thick, in which no organic remains 

 were observed. In the second stratum, consisting of sand, becoming 

 coarser towards the lowest part, and ending in sandy gravel from three 

 to eight feet, ' were found always, within two feet of the third stratum, 

 the teeth and bones of the hippopotamus, the teeth and bones of the 

 elephant, the horns, bones, and teeth of several species of deer and 

 ox, atid the sheila of river fish. The remains of hippopotami are so 

 extremely abundant, that in turning over an area of 120 yards in the 

 t .-eaaon,' (1812) 'parts of six tusks have been found of this 

 animal.' Mr. Trimmer adds, that ' the gravel stones in this stratum 

 do not appear to have been rounded in the usual way by attrition, 

 and that the bones must have been deposited after the flesh was off, 

 because in no instance have two bones been found together which were 

 joined in the living animal ; and farther, that the bones are not in 

 the least worn, as must have been the case had they been exposed to 

 the wash of a sea-beach.' 



*' When the flesh and ligaments of dead hippopotami decomposing 

 in African rivers have been dissolved and washed from its bones, these 

 will become detached from one another, and may be separately im- 

 bedded in the sedimentary deposits at the bottom of the river with- 

 out becoming much water-worn in their course previous to entomb- 

 ment. Although therefore the bones of the Brentford hippopotamus 

 were imbedded after the flesh was off, the individual to which they 

 belonged might not have been transported from any great distance, 

 the phenomena being perfectly in accordance with the fact that the 

 animal had lived and died in the stream with the fresh-water mollusks, 

 the shells of which characterise the sedimentary deposit in which its 

 bones were subsequently buried. 



"All the well-observed phenomena attending the discovery of 

 hippopotauiic remains, have concurred in establishing the truth of 

 the conjecture of Douglas, that such animals, though now tropical, 

 wore formerly inhabitants of these regions. Additional arguments, 

 as novel as ingenious, in support of the same conclusion have been 

 deduced by Dr. Itiicklanrt, from his examination of the cave of Kirkdale, 

 and of the remains of the quadrupeds, including the hippopotamus, 

 which he discovered in that remarkable depository of organist d 

 Of the great amphibious Pachyderm, he cites six molar 

 and a few fragments of canine and incisor teeth, ' the bent of 

 which are in the possession of Mr. Thorpe of York." 



" These teeth of the hippopotamus therefore, like the teeth of the 

 mammoth, associated with them in the Kirkdale Cave, prove that 

 they were young and inexperienced individuals that had fallen into 

 tin! clutches of the co-exUting predatory Carnivora, which made that 

 cave their lurking place, and perfectly coincide with the conclusions 

 which Dr. Bucklaud thus enunciates : -' The facts developed in this 

 cliarnel -house of the antediluvian forests of Yorkshire, demonstrate 

 that there was a long succession of years in which the elephant, 

 rhinoceros, and hippopotamus had been the prey of the hyaenas, 

 which, like themselves, inhabited England in the period immediately 

 preceding the formation of the diluvial gravel ; and if they inhabited 

 thin country, it follows as a corollary that they also inhabited all those 

 other regions of the northern hemisphere in which similar bones have 

 1'iund under precisely the same circumstances, not mineralised, 

 but ."imply in the state of grave-bones imbedded in loam, or clay, or 

 gravel, over great part of northern Europe, as well as North America, 

 an. I Siberia. Fossil remains of the hippopotamus have been found 

 in some abundance, and in a more perfect state than those in the 

 tluviatile deposits of the valley of the Thames and Avon, in the 

 formation of clay and sand with lignite beds, also of fresh-water 

 origin, that overlie the Norwich Crag upon the eastern coast of 

 -Ik.'" 



ains of the extinct Hippopotamus have been found in other 

 caves in England besides Kirkdale, as at Kent's Hole, Torquay, and at 

 I lupiham Common. The shells which were found by Mr. Strickland 

 with the remains of this animal, indicate that no great difference 

 of temperature existed from that which we find at the present day. 

 The remains of //. major are not uncommon along the European 

 shore of the Mediterranean. No remains of it have been found 

 in any pirt of Asia. In the fossils from the Sewalik Hills, found 

 by l)r. Falconer and Captain Cautley, there is a representative of 

 the hippopotamus with six incisive teeth in the lower jaw. For this 

 form the Hubgeneric name Jlexaprotodon has been proposed. We have 

 I of the Hippopotamus having existed upon our planet 

 anterior to the pliocene division of the tertiary period; and the 



ancient extinct species, like that of the recent form, seeing to have 

 been confined to the eastern hemisphere. 



HIPPOPUS. [TRIDACNID.E.] 



HIPPOTHE'RIUM, the name of an extinct species of Mammalia 

 allied to the Horse, found and described by Professor Kaup, from the 

 strata of sand at Epplesheim, near Altzey, about 12 leagues south of 

 Mayence, referrible to the second or Miocene period of the Tertiary 

 Formation. 



HIPPOTHOA, a genus of Animals belonging to the family 

 Polyzoa. It is characterised by a confervoid polypidom, adherent, 

 and creeping, calcareous, irregularly branched, the branches frequently 

 anastomosing, formed of elliptical cells linked to each other at the 

 extremities ; aperture lateral near the distant end. Dr. Johnston 

 enumerates three British species, II. catenularia, II. divaricata, and 

 II. sica. They are found encrusting sheila and other objects in deep 

 water. 



HIPPOTIORIS. [EquiDJS.] 



HIPPU'RIS (from ftnros, a horse, and oCpa, tail, from the resemblance 

 of the stem to a horse's tail), a genus of Plants belonging to the 

 natural order Halorayacete. [HALOBAGACEVE.] It has the calyx-limb 

 very minute, obsoletely 2-lobed ; no petals ; one stamen ; a filiform 

 style lying in a channel of the anther ; the stigma simple, acute; the 

 fruit nucumentaceous, 1-celled. Three species of this genus have 

 been described. Of these, //. vulyaris, the Common Mare's-Tail, is 

 found abundantly throughout Europe and North America. It has 

 linear leaves, 6-12 in a whorl, and callous at the point It is found 

 in ditches and lakes. In deep water the submersed leaves are flaccid 

 and pellucid, and not callous at the points. This plant is very 

 common in Great Britain in stagnant waters and slow streams. 

 (Babington, Manual of British Botany.) 



HIPPURITES, a name given by Knorr and Schroeter to a 

 Fossil Coral (C'yat/top/iyllum ceratites, Goldfuss) of the Eifel Transi- 

 tion Limestone. Uuettard also used this title for a lamelMferous 

 coral. 



By Lamarck, Defrauce, and other writers, this nama is given to a 

 somewhat problematical group of fossils found in limestones of the 

 Oolitic age which flank the Alps in the Uutersberg, near Salzburg, 

 at Regensburg, &c., in the Chalk of Perigord, Alet, &c. 



Lamarck places Hippuritea with Bdcmnites, and Orlkoceratites 

 among the Cephalopoda. (' Conchyliologie : Nouv. Diet, des Sciences 

 Nat.') Latreille takes nearly the same view as Lamarck. (' Families 

 Naturellea' du ' Regue Animal') Rang, referring to Batolites and 

 Raphanite> of Moutfort, and Amplexus of Sowerby (which is certainly 

 a lamelliferous coral), introduces the genus among the acephalous 

 Rudiata, according to the views of De Blainville. 



The structure of the Rudiata has been studied by M. Ch. Desmoulins 

 and M. Deahayea, and the location of Hippuritea in that group may, 

 on their competent authority, be definitively adopted. Considered as a 

 bivalve shell, whose valves lire excessively unequal, one may be 

 described as cylindrical, conical, or curved; the other as flat, or 

 tumid externally, and operculiform. The laniiuuj of the large valve 

 are sometimes separated, as in some spoudyli, and subject to such 

 convolutions on one part of the circumference as to cause the 

 appearance of longitudinal siphons immersed in the shell. These 

 are arguments, but very iusumcieut ones, for comparing Ilippuritca 

 with Cephalopoda. The shell is fibrous, or rather formed of prisrnaHo 

 cells, of a 6-sided figure, in a longitudinal direction, which have been 

 compared to the cellular structure of the shells of Balauiis. The 

 shells are sometimes attached side by side, as two portions of a 

 coral. The internal cavity is far from corresponding to the external 

 figure of the shell, and the cast in this cavity has been called 

 Birustritet. 



The abundance of these fossils in certain calcareous bases of the 

 Chalk or top of the Oolitic formation in the Pyrenees, the Uutersberg 

 near Salzburg, the Bellunese, &c. is extraordinary, so that particular 

 strata receive from the circumstance the name of Hippurite 

 Limestone. 



H ITT AGE, a genus of Plants of the family of Malpiykiacea, 

 better known by the name Giertnera, given it by Schreber in honour 

 of the celebrated Gicrtner; though the name assigned by himself, an 

 prior, is now alone admitted. The genus contains only two species : 

 one, II. Madablota, figured by Sounerat under the latter name (' Voy.' 

 ii. t. 135), which is common in the forests of many parts of India ; 

 the other, II. obtuaifolia, is found in China, but commonly cultivated 

 as an ornamental plant in India. Both species are remarkable for 

 their great size as climbers, ascending to the tops of the loftiest trees, 

 and hanging down in elegant festoons of white flowers. 



HIRCUS. [CAFHE.K.J 



HIRLING, a local name for the Salmon Trout. [SALMONID.K.] 



HIRUDINE'LLA, a name given by M. Bory to a genus of Micro- 

 loaria. 



HIRUDINID^E. [ANNELIDA.] 



HIRUNDINID^E, a family of Birds belonging to the order 

 Intessorei, and the division Fissirostra. They include the species of 

 birds known by the name of Swallows and Martins. Many of these 

 are inhabitants of the British Islands. The following are the forma 

 described in Yarrell's ' History of British Birds : ' 



Uirundo. Beak very short, depressed, and very wide at the base ; 



