2 PLEISTOCENE MAMMALIA. 



inhabitant of north-western Europe manifested itself even earlier in England than 

 on the Continent, an old tract published in 1660 recording the finding at Chartham 

 near Canterbury of bones and teetli which were regarded as hippopotamine. 

 Owen, however, states that the accompanying figures of the teeth were quite good 

 enough to show that the animal in question was a rhinoceros. 



The occurrence of the hippopotamus in England was clearly established by a 

 number of observers early in the nineteenth century. Parkinson 1 (1811) accurately 

 described teeth from Walton, Essex, these being now preserved in the Royal 

 College of Surgeons' Museum. Trimmer 2 (1813) gave an excellent account of 

 bones found in river gravel near Brentford, and Strickland 3 (1834) of others found 

 in the Avon valley near Worcester. 



The earliest record of the hippopotamus from a British cave is contained in 

 Backhand's classical account of the Kirkdale cave (1822). 4 The teeth found were 

 mainly milk-molars and permanent molars which had not yet cut the jaw, from 

 which the inference was drawn that it was young and inexperienced individuals 

 that fell victims to the Kirkdale hyaenas. 



Meanwhile, the wonderful series of hippopotamine remains from the Val 

 d'Arno w r as attracting more attention, and was briefly described by Breislak 5 (1822). 

 Cuvier had had an opportunity earlier than this of examining some of the bones, 

 and it was on them that he based his view that the fossil form Hippopotamus major 

 was distinct from the living species, and indeed differed from it as much as the 

 fossil species of rhinoceros and elephant differed from their living congeners. 

 Nesti (1820) gave a full account with three plates of the Val d'Arno hippopotamus. 

 He followed Cuvier in considering the fossil form to be a distinct species, as did 

 Pictet 7 in his ' Paleontologie ' (IS 14) and Owen 8 in his ' History of British Fossil 

 Mammals and Birds' (1846), in which, in addition to various Pleistocene specimens 

 being described, a fine mandible from the Forest Bed of Cromer is figured. 



Even more remarkable than those of the Val d'Arno were the masses of bones 

 of hippopotamus found in the caves of San Ciro and Maccagnone near Palermo, 

 Sicily, and described by Falconer (I860). 



The splendidly illustrated section of de Blainville's ' Osteographie ' dealing 

 with the hippopotamus was published in 1844, and the historical account of the 

 discovery of hippopotamine remains which it contains has already been alluded to. 

 De Blainville discusses the evidence on which Cuvier based his view that the fossil 



1 ' Organic Remains, ' iii, p. 375. - 'Phil. Trans.,' ciii, p. 131. 



1 ' Proc. Geol. Soc.,' ii, p. 111. ' ' Phil. Trans.." cxii, p. 182. 



5 'Traite sur la structure exterieure du Globe,' ii, p. 352. 



,; 'Mem. Soc. Ital. Sci.' (Modena), xviii, p. 415. 



7 I-, p- 252. 8 p. 399. 



' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc' xvi, p. 99. For an account of this deposit and a suggestion as to 

 how it may have accumulated see W. B. Wright, ' The Quaternary Ice Age' (1914), p. -J 18. 



