OUR LAST HIPPOPOTAMUS. 337 



the experience gained at Amsterdam. Five hippopo- 

 tamus calves have been bom there, and nearly all have 

 died soon after birth. On dissection after death it was 

 found that the first two calves had died from indigestion, 

 the cow's milk with wliich they were fed having been 

 curdled into solid lumps. Afterwards ass's milk was 

 used, and with sufficient success to enable a young 

 hippopotamus to be reared. There seems to be an 

 adverse fate against the hippopotamus. This European 

 specimen was bought, when a few months old, by an 

 American firm. They gave l,000i for it, and thought 

 partially to * recoup ' themselves by showing it in Eng- 

 land before it crossed the Atlantic. The speculation 

 was mifortunate, for the animal was burned to death in 

 the disastrous fire which destroyed the Tropical Depart- 

 ment of the Crystal Palace some years ago, so that there 

 is not a single specimen of a hippopotamus bred in 

 Europe.^ 



To return to our calf. It took about three pints of 

 milk in six hours, once imbibing nearly a pint at a time. 

 Nothing, however, could save it, and about seven p.m. 

 of the same day it died. Should the reader wish to 

 know what a hippopotamus baby looks like, he has only 

 to go to the Zoological Gardens, where he may see the 

 stufi'ed skin of the older calf, and close to it a plaster 

 cast of the baby, taken by Mr. Frank Buckland. 



There is a comic element in most human affairs ; 



' The reader is probably aware that since this article was ■written, the 

 rearing of the young Hippopotamus has been successfully accomplished. 



