THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. 279 



m the moft fuperficial manner; and, in the 

 little he fays, there are more errors than truths 

 Pliny * copies Ariftotle, and, inftead of cor- 

 recting, adds to the number of his blunders. It 

 was not till about the middle of the fixteenth 

 century that any precife information was ob- 

 tained concerning this animal. Belon, being 

 then at Conftantinople, faw a living hippopota- 

 mus, of which, however, he gives but an im- 

 perfect reprefentation ; for the two figures which 

 he has added to his defcription were not drawn 

 from the animal he faw, but were copied from 

 the reverfe of Adrian's medal, and from the E- 

 gyptian coloilus at Rome. Hence the aera of 

 any exact knowledge concerning this animal 

 mud be brought forward to the year ibo^ 

 when Federico Zerenghi, a furgeon of Narni ii'i 

 Italy, printed at Naples the hiftory of two hip- 

 popotami which he had taken alive in a great 

 ditch dug oft purpofe in the neighbourhood of 

 the Nile, near Damietla. This little book was 

 written in Italian- and, though it be the on- 



appear not. on the outfide of the mouth. His tail is very (.'.li- 

 ferent from that of the wild boar; and he is at l'eaft fix times 

 larger than the afs. Like other quadrupeds, he can live oik 

 land ; for the one defcribed by Belon had lived two or three 

 days without entering the water. Hence Ariftotle muft have 

 had very bad information concerning this animal* 



* Pliny fays, that the hippopotamus inhabits the fea as 

 well as the rivers, and that he is covered with hair like the fea* 

 calf. Note. This lad fa ft is advanced without any foundation ; 

 for it is certain that he has no hair on his fkin, and that he 

 was never feen nearer the fea than the mouths of rivers. 



