58 



LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



tion, an apology for teeth ; forming, however, an 

 apparatus amply sufficient for the mastication of 

 its insect food burrowing in the banks of rivers, 

 and whose palmated feet enable it to swim and 

 dive, making it perfectly at home in the water. 



Like the kangaroo* and other Australian ani- 

 mals, these are rapidly disappearing before the 

 march of civilization ; and the noble native sav- 

 age, naked but not ashamed, complains bitterly 

 that the white man's kangaroo, as he terms the 

 sheep and oxen of the colonist, have destroyed 

 his, and declares that he ought to have compensa- 

 tion. He has a far better case than many who 

 obtain it from our best of all possible parlia- 

 ments. 



At some future period our readers may wish to 

 form a more particular acquaintance with these 

 monotremes ; but at present we must leave them 

 to write a few words on that observed of all ob- 

 servers, the newly-arrived hippopotamus. 



26th May. This day I have seen the first 

 living hippopotamus 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.f 



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 T looked down on the animal's broad, 

 rounded back, of a submerged black portmanteau 

 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 properly be termed biting on 

 the woodwork at the side ; sank again, and when 

 at the bottom walked leisurely about as if looking 

 iLr something, wondering, perhaps, why the luxu- 

 riant water-plants of Africa were not growing 

 there. After disporting itself some time, it lei- 

 surely 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 observing him closely. I gently tickled and 

 scratched him about the eyes, muzzle, and ears, 



* The frequency of these animals in our parks and 

 menageries a few years since must have been observed by 

 many. Now we rarely see one. 



t A copy of this drawing, by Mr. John M'Gregor, is 

 given in the Illustrated London News, 25th May, 1350. 



and the good-natured animal lazily lay down like 

 a dog or a pig to enjoy the operation. When I 

 ceased and retired, he rose with playfully open 

 mouth to follow me ; and his keeper, Hamet, who 

 was then with him a fine young man, with a 

 Nubian or Egyptian cast of countenance was 

 obliged to shut the door of his apartment to keep 

 him in, notwithstanding his remonstrating snort. 



The first parts of his organization that struck me 

 were the eyes and the nostrils. The former 

 have, at first sight, a very extraordinary appear- 

 ance, and convey the idea of enormous projection 

 of the eye-ball ; as if such protrusion was the 

 result of some injury or disorder, external or in- 

 ternal. But no. Here is another instance of the 

 most beautiful adaptation. The muscles of the 

 eye must be most powerful, and must be endowed 

 with great versatility, capable of protruding or 

 withdrawing the eye-ball, which can be either 

 projected remarkably, or sunk within the orbit 

 considerably, so as to adapt it for vision in the 

 different media where it is to act, whether the 

 animal be on land, just under the water, or far 

 dovm beneath its surface. It brought to my mind 

 a similar adaptation in birds, where the bony ring 

 and muscles form a telescopic apparatus in eagles 

 and other birds of prey. 



The nostrils, which are so placed that they 

 appear above the surface of the water first when 

 the animal rises from below, can be closed like 

 those of a seal when the v animal descends into the 

 deep, and opened when it comes up for the pur- 

 pose of taking in a supply of air. But though the 

 nostrils can be closed like those of the seal, the 

 machinery for working them must be more com- 

 plicated than the muscles which enable that animal 

 merely to close or open those gates of breath at 

 pleasure. In the hippopotamus the nostrils, 

 which appeared to me to be situated more verti- 

 cally than those of the seal, can be mounted up, 

 as it were, by a process indicating the presence of 

 an orbicular sphincter with a protrusive power, so 

 that the air can be taken in with the least possible 

 exposure of the head. 



These two portions of its animal machinery are 

 of the greatest consequence to the well-being and 

 safety of an animal that spends so much of its 

 time in the water. The beautifully contrived eye 

 is unlike that of any mammiferous quadruped 

 known to me. It approaches, in its power of 

 rolling round, when it is in a state of protrusion, 

 to that of the chameleon, and, like it, must com- 

 mand a very extensive area. See how admirably 

 this is fitted to the requirements of the animal. 

 If danger threatens, the hippopotamus instinctively 

 rushes to the river ; and while there latent, can 

 manage to just lift his head among the water- 

 plants, and roll his eye " like the bull in Cox's 

 museum," but to much better purpose. If all is 

 safe, and according to his observation he may turn 

 out, he can quit his subaqueous retreat ; or, if all 

 be not right, he can quietly sink again and remain 

 in his cool and unapproachable retreat at the 

 bottom, occasionally rising and protruding his 



