1867.] DR. E. CRISP ON THK HIPPOl'OTAMUS. GO 1 



5. On some Points connected with tlie Anatomy of tlie Hip- 

 popotamus [Hippopotanms amphibius). By Edwards 

 Crisp, M.D., F.Z.S. &c. 



The animal, a jiart of the anatomy of which I am about to describe, 

 is the only one that has been dissected in this country. In France 

 one or two young Hippopotami at birth have been examined ; but 

 the only record I have met with is in the ' Annales des Sciences Na- 

 turelles,' I860, {). 376, " Recherches sur le systeme sanguin de I'Hip- 

 popotame," by the late Professor Gratiolet, a paper I shall have to 

 refer to hereafter. It is probable that other accounts of the anatomy 

 of this animal may exist ; but I have not taken much trouble to find 

 them, as I prefer working the matter out in my own way. On 

 a recent visit to Paris I was told by Professor Milne-Edwards, to 

 whom I pointed out the presence of skin-glands and the colic- 

 gland, to be hereafter described, "that the anatomy of the Paris 

 specimen had not been completed." I saw casts of the external 

 muscles of this young animal and of the injected abdominal vessels 

 at the Museum of Comparative Anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes, 

 the latter made, probably, for the purpose of illustrating Gratiolet's 

 paper. 



The Hippopotamus I have dissected was burnt to death at the 

 Crystal Palace at the end of last year ; its age was fourteen months 

 and a few days, and it weighed about seven or eight cwt. The 

 length from nose to anus was 68 inches ; the circumference in the 

 largest part of the body 82 inches, that of the neck behind the ear 

 44 inches. In consequence of the thickness of its skin, its interior 

 parts were for the most part intact and uninjured. I purchased the 

 dead animal, and had the advantage of dissecting it in my own gar- 

 den, where I took casts and drawings of all the important parts of 

 its anatomy. The skeleton is also in my possession. One side of 

 the animal was well roasted. I supplied some of my friends witli 

 the meat cooked gipsy fashion, and I partook of it several times my- 

 self Its flavour was excellent, and the colour of the flesh was whiter 

 than any veal T have ever seen. In Knight's ' Enghsh Cyclopaedia 

 of Natural History,' under the article Hippopotamus, is the follow- 

 ing:— "With regard to minor details, the flesh of the Wasser-ochs 

 is much esteemed as an article of food." In the first catalogue of 

 the African Museum we read that it is much in request both among 

 the natives and the colonists, and that the epicures of Cape Town do 

 not disdain to use their influence with the country farmers to obtain 

 a preference in the matter of Sea-cow's speck (as the fat which li:s 

 immediatelv under the skin is called when salted and dried). In the 

 animal in question this fat was about 1| mch in thickness. And let 

 me here make another digression. It has been said that elephants 

 examined in this country are free from fat; but on the last I in- 

 spected, a female that died in the Society's Gardens, the fat (of an 



Proc. Zool. Soc— 1867, No. XXXIX. 



