66 



THE NON-RUMINANT OR MANY-TOED ARTIODACTYLA. 



a hide yielding a good thick leather, and 

 tusks affording an ivory as highly esteemed 

 as that derived from the elephant, it is chiefly 

 these devastations that have always drawn 

 down upon it the furious persecution of the 

 colonists. 



It is a peaceable animal, a capital swimmer 

 and diver, able to remain five minutes under 

 the water without coming up to breathe, and 

 fond of roaming about on dry land in the 

 evening, when it will sport with other members 

 of its own species, bellowing with joy in a 

 voice which, according to the negroes, is equal 

 to that of a hundred oxen. It spends the day 

 in inactivity, and then affords an opportunity 

 to insect-eating birds to wander about on its 

 back hunting out the numerous parasites by 

 which it is infested. It is said that these 

 birds also serve as sentinels to the hippo- 

 potamus, giving it warning by their cries of 

 the approach of danger. The only danger 

 to which the hippopotamus is exposed is that 

 which is due to man; other animals take 

 good care not to attack this Titan. The 

 stories told of battles between hippopotamuses, 

 lions, and crocodiles are mere fables. The 

 females of the species are tenderly attached 

 to their young, which follow them about in 

 the water a few hours after birth, and often 

 sit riding on their back, 



When wounded or pursued, or when from 

 any cause it falls into a fury, the hippopotamus 

 becomes terrible. It attacks boats, which it 

 shatters between its formidable jaws, crushes 

 men to death with its teeth, or tramples them 

 with its paws, and sometimes it will dart 

 upon its opponent from some place of con- 

 cealment with the rapidity of lightning, over- 

 turning every obstacle by its mere momentum. 

 The mothers appear to take revenge for their 

 slaughtered and captured young even a con- 

 siderable time after these have been lost. 

 The narratives of travellers and natives are 

 full of exciting accounts of hunts after and 

 battles with these terrible beasts, which are 

 all the more dangerous since even the heaviest 



bullets can pierce their hide only at short 

 distances, and the animal is remarkably 

 tenacious of life. 



Even the ancient Romans brought hippo- 

 potamuses to Europe for their games in the 

 circus. In our time some specimens are to 

 be seen in all zoological gardens, where they 

 have even multiplied. Their intelligence is 

 certainly very obtuse, and their keepers must 

 always be on their guard; and so likewise 

 must the spectators — for the hippopotamus 

 has the habit of ejecting its semi-fluid excre- 

 ment out of the water to a distance of perhaps 

 twenty yards, this process being accompanied 

 by jerking movements of the tail. 



THE PIG FAMILY 



(SUIDA). 



The pigs or hogs form a separate family, 

 characterized for the most part by having the 

 upper canines almost always directed upwards, 

 while the lower canines are so closely applied 

 to them that the two together on each side 

 form only a single tusk. With the exception 

 of the peccaries, which have the upper canines 

 directed downwards in the normal manner, 

 the pigs do not defend themselves by biting, 

 but make thrusts to the right and left and 

 from beneath upwards with these laterally 

 projecting weapons. The muzzle is drawn 

 out in the form of a proboscis, and spread 

 out at the end into a disc in which the 

 nostrils open. With this very tough instru- 

 ment, which is supported internally by the 

 cartilage of the nose, the animal digs up the 

 earth. The incisors are three in number in 

 each half of each jaw, but the upper ones are 

 very apt to be lost, and not infrequently do 

 not cut the gum at all. The cheek-teeth are 

 composed of numerous tubercles arranged in 

 folds. The eyes are small, the ears always 

 erect, pointed, paper-cornet-shaped; only in 

 the domestic forms do they become broad 

 and pendent. The hide is covered with stiff 

 bristles, which often become lengthened to 



