ANCIENT AND MODERN HIPPOPOTAMUSES 



THE popular conception of hippopotamuses is that they 

 are clumsily built creatures of enormous size and bulk, 

 spending the greater part of their time in the rivers and 

 lakes of Africa, where they are more at home than on land, 

 diving with the readiness of a crocodile, and even walking 

 on the river bed with their bodies submerged many feet 

 below the surface of the water. As regards the common 

 hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius), which is the one 

 that alone has been exhibited in our Zoological Gardens, 

 this conception is a perfectly true one. As, however, 

 is so frequently the case in popular zoology, this concep- 

 tion, excellent as it is so far as the common species 

 are concerned, does not cover the whole ground, for it 

 happens that there exists in Liberia a second species of 

 the genus, known as the pigmy hippopotamus (//. 

 liberiensis\ differing not only in size, but likewise in 

 habits, from the one with which we are all familiar. In 

 place of a total length of about eleven feet, measured in 

 a straight line, and weighing probably between three and 

 four tons, the pigmy hippopotamus is not larger than a 

 good-sized wild boar, although it has the short and stout 

 limbs of its gigantic cousin, with which it also agrees to 

 a certain extent in the relatively large size of its head. 

 As regards its mode of life, this species differs, however, 

 in toto from the common one. Instead of passing at least 



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