LARGE FOSSIL HIPPOPOTAMUS. 401 



ganic remains from Chatham, any more than those from 

 Chartham, having appertained to a " river or sea bred 

 creature." The genus of land-quadrupeds, to which these 

 fossils actually belonged, is nevertheless, at the present 

 day, as much confined to the tropics as is the Hippo- 

 potamus. 



No long time elapsed before true Hippopotamic remains 

 were discovered in the same deposits which had yielded 

 the bones and teeth of Rhinoceroses. It was most proba- 

 bly from fresh-water marl that the entire skull of the Hip- 

 popotamus was obtained, which is stated in Lee's ' Natural 

 History of Lancashire 1 to have been found in that county 

 under a peat-bog, and from which work Dr. Buckland 

 has copied the figure given in plate xxii., fig. 5 of the 

 ' Reliquiae Diluvianse.' From the indication of the second 

 premolar in this figure we may, I think, discern the 

 greater separation of that tooth from the third premolar, 

 which forms one of the marks of distinction between the 

 fossil and recent Hippopotamus. 



Mr. Parkinson, in the third volume of his ' Organic 

 Remains,' 4to., 1811, p. 375, treating of the Hippopo- 

 tamus, says, " In my visits to Walton, in Essex, I have 

 been successful in obtaining some remains of this animal." 

 These fossils are now in the Museum of the Royal Col- 

 lege of Surgeons, and are referable to the extinct species 

 subsequently determined by Cuvier in the second edition 

 of the ' Ossemens Fossiles, 1 under the name of Hippopo- 

 tamus major. The first specimen, cited by Mr. Parkin- 

 son as " an incisor of the right side of the lower jaw," 

 is the great median incisor, which, when entire, must 

 have been eighteen inches in length. It has lost much 

 of its original animal matter, and is considerably decom- 

 posed. This tooth may be distinguished from the straight 



