to strangers. As regards the danger from the hippopotami when at home, Mr. Petherick told me that they are not to be feared when the traveller is in a large boat, but that they will follow with intent malicious the smaller rowing boat. They will make their attack in two ways, either by rushing in a succession of springs or bounds, every one of which brings one-half of the body out of the water, and, when alongside, rise openmouthed and endeavour to carry off some one on board or by driving full speed under, and using their immense head as a battering-ram, strike the boat with such force as to make her quiver from stem to stern. Mr. Petherick has known planks knocked clean out of the side of a boat, sinking her almost instantaneously and before the shore could be reached by her astonished crew.

This hippopotamus is now in America. He was sold, I believe, to Barnum for a large sum of money, I should be curious to know under what name this king of showmen advertised him to the public.

TOSSED BY A HIPPOPOTAMUS. llo

On one occasion Petherick lost a man out of the boat; the hippopotamus rising out of the water, and seizing him in his fearful mouth. The body was cut in two by the animal’s teeth. The hippopotamus cannot bear to be cut off from the water. One of my friends was once tracking a beast that had gone inland. The brute heard him and, turning round sharply, charged him; then, catching him before he could get out of the way, tossed him high up in the air, without, however, doing him more bodily harm than frightening him out of his wits.

Nothing could afterwards induce this hunter ever to follow hippopotami on shore. These huge beasts make a fearful bellowing and crying noise at night, often to

the traveller’s great discomfort.

My late friend, Dr. Genzick, of Vienna, told me that he once shot a hippopotamus. He got a fair and steady aim at him, the beast probably imagining the man in the boat did not see him, as he had sunk himself deeply into the water, leaving his nose and eyes only exposed. The ball struck the hippopotamus full on the head, and he sank instantly to the bottom, where he kicked up such a turmoil that, as Genzick said, “ one would have thought there was a steam-engine gone mad at the bottom of the river.” However, the Doctor never found the hippopotamus, though he hunted everywhere for nim, but the next year he discovered his whitened

SER. III. 1

bones upon a sand-bank some distance from the place where he had shot him. He knew it was the beast he had shot the year before, for he recognised the bullet he found in his skull as his own make.

During a visit to Paris, some six years back, I heard that a young hippopotamus had just been born at the Jardin des Plantes. I went up to see it, but it was dead. It appears that the poor little thing was born in the water, and paddled round and round the sides trying to get out; the mother endeavoured to help it up with her head, but she somehow managed to injure or else drown it. I believe, in the spring of 1865, another young hippopotamus was born at the Jardin des Plantes, and was taken from the mother immediately at birth. Dr. Sclater exhibited drawings of it at the meeting of the British Association at Birmingham. He reported that it was alive and well.

Everyone is well acquainted with our old friend, the hippopotamus at the Zoological; but everyone may not know that he once had a tooth drawn, and that by a non-professional dentist, and with a pair of forceps made expressly for the purpose. Mr. Bartlett was the operator, and I think, after the reader has read his communication, he will agree with me that he deserves great credit for his ingenuity and the surgical skill he displayed with his huge patient. Mr. Bartlett writes to me

as follows:

“ My dear Mr. Buckland, “ You will be glad to know that I have succeeded in performing perhaps the largest, if not the greatest, dental operation on record. “ Our male hippopotamus has been, as you know, suffering from a fractured tooth, and fearing that the consequences might be serious, I had a strong oak fence fixed between his pond and the iron railings, and I then determined to remove the broken tooth; this I accomplished on the morning of Wednesday last, but not

without a fearful struggle. “ I had prepared a powerful pair of forceps, more than two feet long; with these I grasped his fractured incisor, thinking, with a firm and determined twist, to gain possession of that fine piece of ivory. This, however, was not quite so easily done, for the brute, amazed at my impudence, rushing back, tearing the instrument from my hands, and, looking as wild as a hippopotamus can look, charged at me just as I had recovered my

forceps. “ I made another attempt, and this time held on long enough to cause the loose tooth to shift its position, but was again obliged to relinquish my hold. 1 had; however, no occasion to say, i Open your mouth,’ for this he did to the Mlest extent; therefore I had no difficulty in again seizing the coveted morsel, and this time drew it forth, with a good sharp pull and a twist,

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out from his monstrous jaws. One of the most remarkable things appeared to me to be the enormous force of the air when blown from the dilated nostrils of this great beast while enraged. It came against me with a

force that quite surprised me.—A. D. Bartlett.”

A little-known species of hippopotamus, of comparatively pigmy dimensions, has been discovered in Liberia, the Western African settlement of emancipated negroes. It is so common a hundred miles in the interior of that country as to supply much of the animal food eaten by the inhabitants. This small Hippopotamus liberiensis would be an interesting animal to add

to the collection in the Regent’s Park.

Chunie, the elephant that was so barbarously “ mur-dered ” in Exeter Change,# because he was “ mad,” was a terrible contrast to the above case. This poor elephant was mad, but he was mad with the toothache.f If there had been 11 a Bartlett ” in charge of him, Chunie would never, I feel convinced, have been shot; for he would have found some means or other, probably by making an incision down to the root of the diseased tusk, of relieving the intense pain that the poor brute must have suffered. Mr. Cross, the proprietor, writes in his “ Companion to

See “ Fossil Elephant in England.” Appendix. f See the tnsk itself in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.

the Koyal Menagerie at Exeter Change, 1820,” the following account of his elephant Chunie “ There is no record of any animal having been seen in Europe of the volume of body equal to the elephant now forming so distinguished a portion of this collection. His growth since 1810, when he was exhibited on the stage at Covent Garden Theatre, has been prodigious, he being now more than double the size he was at that period. His height is above ten feet, and his weight

above five tons. “ The food which constitutes his daily consumption amounts to the weight of more than eight hundred pounds. Familiarly speaking, he may be called an animated mountain. His habits are of the most amiable description, and he shows off his qualifications with perfect good-humour,” &c.

Very true, Mr. Cross, but soon afterwards the poor elephant “went mad,” and his execution will be an everlasting disgrace to those who had anything to do with the matter. A long account of the slaughter is to be found in Hone’s “Every-day Book.” I gave an abstract of this in “ The Field,” in answer to a question .from a correspondent. I am glad I did so, for I am able now to give a much more authentic account from an eye-witness, who kindly wrote to me on the subject: —

“May, 1857.

1 1 observe that you have favoured the readers of the 1 Field ’ of May 9 with an account of the slaughter of poor Chunie, the elephant, at Exeter Change. You say it is from Hone’s 1 Every-day Book,’ but I think Hone

does not give it quite correctly. “ As one of the perpetrators of that cruel deed, if you choose I will tell you what I saw done that day. u I was at the gunmaker’s, Stevens of Holborn, when Mr. Herring of the New-road came in to borrow rifles and beg Mr. Stevens to return with him to the ’Change to shoot the elephant. Mr. Stevens was a man in years and full of gout, and I knew directly what would happen; he pointed to me as one for his substitute, and in a very few minutes I had selected the rifles, cast balls, &c., and we were on the way to the Exeter ’Change. We arrived there and found the greatest confusion; beasts and birds most uproarious, set on by witnessing the struggle to keep in order the ungovernable elephant. The teething season was supposed to be on, but your

description of the state of the tusks appears to settle that question. Mr. Cross was much vexed with his coming loss, and Mrs. Cross in tears. “ I was supposed in that day a steady rifle shot, and with Mr. Herring, in my conceit and ignorance, intended to kill the poor brute with our first fire. Dr. Brooks

nad tried the poisons, and by his directions we fired into a crease rather below the blade-bone. I expected to see him fall; instead of which he made a sharp hissing noise, and struck heavily at us with his trunk and tried to make after us, and would but for the formidable double-edged spear-blades of the keepers. These spears were ten feet long at least, wielded from a spiked end below, and the trunk wounded itself in endeavours to seize the double-edged blades. It was most fortunate the poor beast stood our fires so long afterwards, for, had he fallen suddenly, and struggled in death, his struggles would have brought him from out of his cage or den, and if he had fallen from the strong flooring built under for the support of his great weight, my belief is, through the whole flooring we should have all gone together, lions and men, tigers and birds. He struggled much to come after us, and we were compelled to reload in the passage, and after firing about six shots more the soldiers came from Somerset House; they had but three cartridges each man, and I forget now how they were allowed to come off duty. He bore the presence of the soldiers much better than ours, and I for a time was compelled to load the muskets for the men; they had not the least notion of a flask: they ran the powder into the musket-barrels in most uncertain quantities, and I was compelled to unload and reload for them, or we should have had some much worse accident. The

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EXECUTION OF CHUNIE.

FAC-SIMILE OF DRAWING OF EXECUTION OF CHUNIE THE ELEPHANT.

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murderous assault was at length closing, and I entered with a loaded gun, taking the last shot as the noble brute seated himself on his haunches; he then folded his forelegs under him, adjusted his trunk, and ceased to live, the only peaceful one among us cruel wretches and the only excuse I can now find for the cruel slaughter is that it was commenced and must be finished. Poor brute! it was a necessary though cruel act; he was ungovernable in a frail tenement.”

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