THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 91 



his death, as Professor Owen found, on dissecting the massive brute, which 

 weighed upwards of two tons, that the seventh rib had been fractured at 

 the bend near the vertebral end, and had wounded the left lung. 



Owen ascribed the broken rib to " some clumsy fall, or other- 

 wise inexplicable process"; and the Council, in chronicling the 

 death, say that as the animal had been upwards of fifteen years 

 in the Menagerie its " longevity rather than its decease " was 

 matter for remark. 



The great event of 1850 was the arrival of the hippopotamus, 

 the first living specimen seen in Europe " since these creatures 

 were last exhibited by the third Gordian in the Amphitheatre of 

 Imperial Rome." This young male was but a few days old when 

 it was captured by a party of hunters sent out by the Viceroy. 

 They met with it on the island of Obaysch, in the White Nile, 

 and from that spot the animal was named. It was sent down to 

 Cairo in a boat constructed for the purpose, and kept in that 

 city through the winter, and was brought home in the spring on 

 board the Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamer Bipon, 

 where a bath was fitted up for it, and other arrangements made 

 for its comfort, justifying Frank Buckland's remark that it 

 travelled en prince. It was landed at Southampton on May 25, 

 and brought by special train to London, " every station yielding 

 up its wondering crowd to look upon the monster as he passed — 

 fruitlessly, for they only saw the Arab keeper, who then attended 

 him night and day, and who, for want of air, was constrained to 

 put his head out through the roof." The same night it was 

 safely housed in the Gardens. 



Owen saw it on the following morning (Sunday), and recorded 

 his impressions in the Annals and Magazine of Natural 

 History (v. 2nd ser., pp. 515-18). He estimated the animal to 

 be ten months old, and says that it was 7 ft. long and 6| ft. in 

 girth at the middle of the barrel-shaped trunk, which was sup- 

 ported, clear of the ground, on very short thick legs. In walking 

 the head was depressed, and then the hippopotamus gave him 

 the impression of a huge prize hog, while in the water it swam 

 and plunged about " with a cetaceous or porpoise-like rolling 

 from side to side, taking in mouthfuls of water, and spurting 

 them out again, raising every now and then its huge grotesque 

 head, and biting the woodwork at the margin of the bath." It 



