THE WILDERNESS AND JUNGLE 



plants of its native river or lake, but it also 

 clambers on shore and makes extensive raids 

 on any cultivated land in the neighbourhood, 

 making short work of any plantation in its 

 path and trampling underfoot what it does not 

 eat. Crops over which a hippopotamus has 

 wandered are of no great value that season. 

 Farmers at home, who cry out now and then 

 when any follower of hounds may "accidentally" 

 cut off a corner of a field, should try a hippo- 

 potamus or two. The hippopotamus at the 

 Zoo looks peaceful enough, even when it opens 

 its fearful mouth for buns and biscuits, but it 

 shows a nasty temper at times. I remember 

 an occasion on which it, or its predecessor, 

 killed a terrier that had got into its enclosure. 

 Whether it actually ate the dog, I forget ; but 

 if its appetite is as accommodating as that of its 

 cousin the pig, there is no reason why it should 

 not have done so. 



GIRAFFE AND ZEBRA 



The extraordinary resources of Africa as a 

 storehouse of strange and interesting wild 

 animals could hardly be more strikingly 

 illustrated than by the fact that it is the only 

 continent producing at once the hippopotamus 

 and the giraffe, the one modelled on a baggage- 

 van, the other an Eiffel Tower of an animal 



