1902.] FOSSIIi HIPPOPOTAMUS FROM CYPRUS, 111 



Hippopotami has taken the trouble to look at Cuvier's descrip- 

 tion \ says that the shape of the lower incisors and canines of 

 Cuvier's "petit Hippopotame fossile" and of the Ghoeropsis 

 liberiensis from West Africa, which is of the same size, seem to 

 leave no doubt that there is generic identity between both ; he 

 therefore proposes to call the fossil Ghceropsis minutus ^. 



The molars of the Liberian form had previously been described 

 by Gratiolet, who states that the trefoil pattern is in this species 

 i-eplaced either by crescents, or by triangles with slightly emar- 

 ginated sides ^. On comparison of the molars from Cyprus with 

 those of the specimen of H. liberiensis in the Natural History 

 Museum, I find that the trefoil pattern is more effaced in the 

 former than in the latter. The almost unworn molar from Wadi 

 Natrun agrees in this respect with the molars of H. liberiensis. 



The shape of the molars therefore shows in H. minutus the 

 most generalized condition of all the known forms ; whereas the 

 conformation of its skull, from the material at present available, 

 appears to be more specialized than in H. liberiensis and H. 

 sivalensis. 



On the whole, so far as actually known, Hippopotamus minutus 

 is an early type of the Hippopotamus tribe. Its diminutive size 

 may be partly— as in H. liberiensis — a primitive feature, partly a 

 consequence of its restricted habitat. 



Like other Mediterranean islands *, Cyprus seems therefore to 

 have preserved among its Pleistocene fauna little-modified sur- 

 vivors of Tertiary Mammalia. 



From his investigation of the recent Molluscan fauna, Kobelt 

 was led to consider Cyprus as an old island (" eine seit langer Zeit 

 abgetrennte Insel "), showing traces of a former connection with 

 the three neighbouring provinces (i. e. Asia Minor, Syria, and the 

 region of the Archipelago), without, however, having received any 

 new immigrants since the end of the Tertiary *. 



In this order of ideas it is noteworthy that a "Wild Sheep 

 discovered on an island of the TJrmi Lake (N.W. Persia) by 

 Mr. Robert Giinther has been shown by Dr. A. Giinther to be 

 nearly related to the Ovis ophion still lingering on the highest 

 summits of Cyprus '. 



1 Falconer, Leith Adams, and others do not appear to have done so ; else they 

 would not have confused the small Hippopotamus from Malta with S. minutus. 



" Zool. et Pal. Gen., prem. ser. p. 250 (1867-69). 



3 L. P. Gratiolet, ' Recherches sur I'Anatomie de I'Hippopotame,' pp. 227-233 

 (1867). 



■* See my latest contribution to this subject in the Proc. of this Society, Dec. 17, 

 1901, pp. 625-628, " On JSnliydrictis galictoides, from the Pleistocene Ossiferous 

 Breccia of Sardinia." 



5 W. Kobelt, ' Studien zur Zoogeographie. II. Die Fauna der meridionalen Sub- 

 Begion,' pp. 337-339 (1898). 



^ A. Giinther, " The Wild Sheep of the Urrai Islands," Journ. Linn. Soc, Zoology, 

 vol. xxvii. pp. 374-376, pi. 22 (1899). 



