286 THE RIVER HORSE. 



logues, in the terrestrial creation, of the Cetacean giants of the marine 

 creation. The Pachyderms formed in Cuvier's system a sufficiently 

 natural order, which modern systematists have dismembered, and, as 

 I believe, a little arbitrarily. This order comprised, besides the 

 elephants, the hippopotami, the rhinoceroses, and the tapirs, all the 

 Porcidse family, and even the Solidungulates, such as the horse and ass. 

 In the present work I shall adopt Cuvier's division. The elephant is 

 the denizen of the forests where, in a succeeding chapter, we shall 



HIPPOPOTAMUS AND CROCODILE OF THE RIVER NILE. 



encounter both him and the rhinoceros. But the hippopotamus belongs 

 incontestably to the fauna of the plain. His name (from the Greek) 

 signifies " River Horse." And, indeed, he lives in the rivers, the 

 pools, the deep marshes ; bis manners are essentially amphibious. 

 He dives and swims with a surprising ease and agility, considering the 

 enormous bulk of his body, and the shortness of his heavy, unwieldy 

 legs. He is able to remain a long time under water. His colour is 

 a brownish-black, and his proportions, ten to twelve feet in length, 



