282 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 
THE HIPPOPOTAMUS 
BY F, C. SELOUS 
Two species of the Hippopotamus Family exist 
on the earth to-day, both of which are inhabitants 
of Africa, and are not found in any other country; 
but the remains of many extinct forms of this genus 
which have been discovered in various parts of Europe 
and Asia show that in Pleistocene and Pliocene times 
these strange and uncouth animals must have been 
widely distributed throughout the greater part of the 
Old World. The fossil remains of the large form of 
hippopotamus which once frequented the lakes and 
rivers of England and Western Europe cannot be 
distinguished from the bones of the common African 
species of to-day, which latter is possibly the only 
animal in the world which has undergone no change 
in form or structure since the prehistoric savages 
of the Thames Valley threw stone-headed spears at 
their enemies. 
The COMMON HIPPOPOTAMUS, though it has long 
been banished from the Lower Nile, and has more 
recently been practically exterminated in the British 
colonies south of the Limpopo, was once an inhabitant 
A THREE-YEAR-OLD HIPPOPOTAMUS of every lake and river throughout the entire African 
In this specimen the great lower tusks are not yet developed Continent from the delta of the Nile to the neigh-. 
bourhood of Cape Town. Now it is not found below 
Khartum, on the Nile; but in Southern Africa a few hippopotamuses are said still to exist in 
the lower reaches of the Orange River. When Van Riebeck first landed at the Cape, in 1652, 
he found some of these animals in the swamp now occupied by Church Square, in the centre 
of Cape Town, and the last in the district was only killed in the Berg River, about seventy 
miles north of that city, as recently as 1874. This animal, which had been protected for some 
years, was at last shot, as it had become very savage, and was in the habit of attacking any 
one who approached it. In my own experience I have met with the hippopotamus in all the 
large rivers of Africa where I have travelled, such as the Zambesi, Kafukwe, Chobi, Sabi, 
Limpopo, and Usutu, and also in most of the many large streams which take their, rise on 
the plateau of Matabililand and Mashonaland, and flow north, south, and east into the Zambesi, 
the Limpopo, or the Sabi. I have also seen them in the sea, at the mouth of the Quillimani 
River, and have heard from natives that they will travel by sea from the mouth of one river 
to another. 
Hippopotamuses live either in families of a few individuals or in herds that may number 
from twenty to thirty members. Old bulls are often met with alone, and cows when about 
to calve will sometimes leave their companions and live for a time in seclusion, returning, 
however, to the herd soon after the birth of their calves. Although, owing to the shortness 
of its legs, a hippopotamus bull does not stand very high at the shoulder— about 4 feet 
8 inches being the average height — yet its body is of enormous bulk. A male which died 
some years ago in the Zoological Gardens of London measured 12 feet in length from the nose 
to the root of the tail, and weighed 4 tons; and these dimensions are probably often exceeded. 
in a wild state. 
The huge mouth of the hippopotamus (see Coloured Plate), which the animal is fond of 
opening to its widest extent, is furnished with very large canine and incisor teeth, which 
are kept sharp by constantly grinding one against another, and thus enable their possessor 
nl Ras ee 
By permission of Herr Cart Hagenbech, Hamburg 
