118 Dr. H. Woodward — Recent and Fossil Hippopotami. 



Palermo, Sicily. So abundant were the remains of this species 



(JP. Pentlandi) in the various caverns near Palermo, that, for 



many years, the bones were exported by shiploads to England and 



Marseilles, for the manufacture of lamp-black for sugar-refining. 



Two hundred tons were removed from one cave (San Ciro) in six 



months. Dr. Falconer writes that literally tens of thousands of 



two species of Hippopotami have been found fossil in Sicily alone. 



Mr. Lydekker considers there is a complete gradation in size from the 



largest fossil individuals of PI. amphibius through H. Pentlandi to the 



smallest specimens of PP. minutus. Prof. Boyd Dawkins evidently 



considers that PP. minutus and JP. Pentlandi are varieties of the same, 



and that they extend from Malta to Sicily, and thence to Crete and 



the Morea. He adds, " It is closely allied to the Liberian species, 



although it is pretty certain that it differed from it in the form of 



its molar teeth." The Hippopotamus possessed the following series 



of teeth, viz. : — 



. . 2 2* 11 7 7f 



incisors ^ — 2 can ' nes -, — 7 molars ^ — ^ ' = 40. 



The molar teeth were of the bunodont type, their crowns being 

 tuberculated (as in the Pigs, Mastodon and Manatee), and wearing 

 clown with use, so as to produce the characteristic double trefoil 

 pattern (see Plate III. Fig. 5). 



So far as at present known, the Hippopotamus is exclusively con- 

 fined to the Old World, no member of the genus having as yet been 

 met with in any Tertiary deposit on the American Continent. 



We had, then, in Europe, in later Tertiary and early Quaternary 

 times, at least two species of Hippopotamus, agreeing in size, and 

 probably also in identity, with the two existing African species ; 

 whilst in India, in late Miocene or early Pliocene times, we had four 

 species marked by differences in their dentition, and evidently be- 

 longing to an older and earlier type than the preceding. 



3 3 



* In H. sivaletlsis we should have incisors 



3 3 



+ Or molars — 

 6 6 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE III. 



Fig. 1. Palatal view of the skull of the recent Hippopotamus amphibius from Africa. 

 ,, 2. Lower jaw of same seen from above. 



(Both figures greatly reduced.) 

 ,, 3. Palatal view of skull of Hippopotamus sivalensis, F. and C. 

 ,, 4. Front or symphisial portion of lower jaw of H. sivalensis, showing the six 

 incisors and the tusk-like canines. 



(Both figures one-eighth natural size.) 

 ,, 5. Molar tooth of same species, showing the worn-down double trefoil pattern 

 of the crown (one-half natural size). 

 Figures 1 and 2 are taken, by permission, from Cassell's Natural History, 



vol. ii. p. 349, article by Prof. Boyd Dawkins and H. W. Oakley. 

 Figs. 3 — 5 are reproduced from Prof. H. A. Nicholson's Palaeontology, 

 vol. ii. p. 343, Fig. 640 (after Falconer and Cautley). 



