370 ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF PACHYDERMATOUS QUADRUPEDS. 



doubt with regard to the true application of the name of the hippo, 

 potamus. 



It would not appear that Christian Europe was favoured with the 

 sight of a living hippopotamus, as the descriptions of this animal in the 

 authors of the middle ages*, without even excepting those who, like the 

 Cardinal Jacques de Vintryf, had visited the country it inhabits, are 

 nothing more than compilations interspersed with new absurdities, or 

 misinterpretations of the old. The Arabians were the only people 

 who, at that period, entertained just notions on this subject. Abdal- 

 latif, in his account of Egypt, describes the hijjpopotamus with great 

 justness and propriety +. 



Belon and Gylius are the first moderns who saw the hippopotamus 

 in its natural state, and perhaps they both saw the same animal, for 

 they both observed it at Constantinople. In his work on fishes, Belon 

 speaks of it from memory, illustrating his account with a figure copied 

 from the medals of Adrian. He rectified the error of the statue of the 

 Nile, which gave this animal five instead of four toes. Of the teeth, 

 he merely observes, that they approximate to those of the horse. 



Gessner restricted himself to copying the account of Belon. (Gesn. 

 Pise, art. Hippop.) 



Gylius, who, as would appear from a letter to the Cardinal d'Ar- 

 magnac, quoted by Prosper Alpin (de. reb. eeg., i, 248), had also seen 

 one of those animals at Constantinople, probably the same seen by 

 B^lon, and yet, as I have already observed, he contents himself with 

 copying the description of Diodorus Siculus. 



It was not until 1603, half a century after Belon, that an Italian 

 surgeon, named Zerenghi, brought from Egypt some skins of the 

 hippopotamus of both sexes, and published a good description of the 

 species, with a figure of the female||. 



Aldrovandus, who had been shown this female figure by Zerenghi, 

 caused a copy of it to be engraved for his History of Animals. How- 

 ever, he did not publish this figure, but another, which was sent to 

 him, as he tells us, from Padua, no doubt by Prosper Alpin, for we 

 find the same figure recurring in the works of the latter, which was 

 not published until 1735. We may see it in Aldrovandus (De Quadr. 

 Dig. Viv., book i, page 184), with a separate drawing of the head 

 (page 185). 



The learned Fabius Columna had a much better drawing of the 

 animal brought home by Zerenghi, executed for his own work. It 

 appeared with a very good description in his Aquat. Obs., page 30, in 

 1616. Hence, it was prior to that of Aldrovandus, although the latter 

 might have been executed before it, supposing it to have come from 

 Prosper Alpin, for this latter autlior left Egypt in 1583, after a sojourn 

 of three years, and died professor, at Padua, in 1617. 



Ludolphus published some drawings of it, far preferable to those I^ 



* Isidore de S(5ville, Orig., book xii, page 168; Vincent de Beauvais, Spect. 

 Natur., book xvii, cbap. 115 ; Albert le Grand, de Nat. Anim., vol. vi, page 654. ' 

 ■f Jacques Vetriac, Natural History, chap. Ixxxvi. 

 X Abdallatif's Account of Egypt, translated by M.de Sacy, page 14.3.. 

 |{ His dissertation is given as an extract by Buffon, vol. xii, page 2.4. 



