HIPPOPO TAMUS 



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than pork. Europeans usually kill hippopotamuses by shooting them 

 in the brain as they raise their heads above the surface of the water to 

 breathe. It is as well to take time and try and make sure of the first 

 shot, as, where they have been much persecuted, these animals do not 

 give easy chances afterwards. Sometimes they will not show any part 

 of the head except the great square snout, as they draw in breath 

 through the nostrils ; and sometimes they disappear altogether after 

 the first shot, and never show themselves again, though the pool may 

 be watched for hours. In such cases I believe they raise their nostrils 

 above the water in the shelter of some overhanging bush, and lie there 

 breathing noiselessly until dark, when they leave the pool and travel 



FIG. 88. Hippopotamuses in the Juba River, photographed by Lord Delamere. 



up or down river to a safer locality, perhaps 20 or 25 miles away, a 

 distance which they can cover in the course of the night. Once while 

 trying to shoot a hippopotamus in the Zambesi the one which capsized 

 my canoe I took the times with my watch, during more than an hour, 

 that it remained under water in the intervals of breathing. The 

 shortest time was forty seconds, and the longest four minutes and 

 twenty seconds ; the usual time being from two to two and a half 

 minutes. The creature always remained longest under water after 

 having been fired at, though on such occasions it must have gone down 

 without having taken a full breath. When killed by a shot in the brain, 

 a hippopotamus at once sinks to the bottom ; and if the water is cold 

 and deep the carcase will not rise to the surface for six hours, or some- 



