MAMMALS. 



i>-2\) 



Africa contains two species of hippopotamus, but the form whose coun- 

 tenance stares upon us from the cut is the best-known form. It is a huge 

 form — fourteen feet long — which is utterly lacking in every element of 

 beauty and grace. This clumsiness and ungainliness is not of so much 

 account ; for the animal spends most of its time in the water, which tends 



Fig. 498. — Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibivs). 



to buoy it up, so that an obesity which would be very inconvenient on 

 land offers no special obstruction to the actual mode of life. It usually 

 swims or floats with but little more than the nostrils above the surface, 

 while it is capable of remaining below for a long time. It feeds upon 

 vegetation of all sorts, and its enormous canine teeth are well adapted to 



