194 



Dr. C. I. Forsyth Major- 



Malagasy species of the genus. As this work has still to be done, 

 and as I do not care to give a compilation from the information 

 already published, I wish the following lines to be considered merely 

 as a brief explanatory note to accompany the figure of the mounted 

 skeleton published in this number of the Geological Magazine 

 (Plate XII). 



Remains of Hippopotamus from Madagascar, presumably from 

 Sirabe, have been known for almost seventy years. In the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Geological Society of London ^ we find : " A letter 

 was read from M. Telfair to Sir Alexander Johnstone, V.P.E.A.S., 

 accompanying a specimen of recent conglomerate rock from 

 the Island of Madagascar, containing fragments of a tusk and 

 part of a molar tooth of a Hippopotamus, and communicated by 

 Roderick Impey Murchison, Esq., F.G.S." These remains are 

 preserved in the Museum of the Geological Society, the label 

 accompanying stating them to come from a locality thirty miles 

 from Antananarivo. 



In 1867 M. A. Grandidier discovered remains on the south-west 

 coast, to which in 1868 he assigned the name of Hippopotamus 

 Lemerlei.^ 



Fig. 1. — Hippopotamus Sivalensis, Falc. & Cautl. Frontal region ; copied from 

 fig. 3, pi. lix, Fauna Antiq. Sival. 



/. frontal ; I. lacrymal ; m. malar ; mx. maxillary ; h. nasal bone. 



Guldberg has compared the species from Sirabe with the living 

 H. amphibius and H. Ziberiensis, and comes to the conclusion that it 

 occupies a somewhat intermediate position between the two, although 

 approaching more closely to the former. I have formerly stated that 

 all the Hippopotamus remains from Madagascar are certainly nearly 

 related to each other, and this relationship may be briefly summed up 

 as follows : In size they are intermediate between H. Liberiensis and 

 H. paleeindicus, with scanty indications of a larger form ; in more 

 important characters they would have to be placed, according to 

 their greater or lesser degree of specialization, between H. Sivalensis 



1 Vol. i (1833), No. 31, p. 479. 



2 Comptes E. Ac. Sci. Paris, Dec. 14, If 



5, vol. Ixvii, p. 1165. 



