"Untrained dogs," says President Roosevelt, "even those of a large size, will speedily be killed by a single peccary, and if they venture to attack a herd will be literally torn kill a peccary, and I haveinto shreds. A big trained dog, however, can, single-handed, known the feat performed several times."

Azara, the eminent Spanish naturalist of the end of the eighteenth century, had considerable experience of the peccaries of Central and Southern America, where the Indians are much addicted to taming wild animals, and keep both the peccary and the tapir in a state of semi-domestication. The peccary he found to be domesticated more easily than might be expected. Though so fierce in its wild state, it soon becomes troublesome from its familiarity.

Mr. Schomburgk, the explorer of Central America, whose travels were so constantly quoted during the Venezuelan arbitration, saw much of the white-lipped species in the forests. He found the animals in large troops under the leadership of an old boar. When attacked, they were ready to surround man, dog, or jaguar; and if there were no means of escape, the enemy was certain to be cut to pieces. He himself had a narrow escape from an infuriated herd, the leader of which he shot in the act of rushing at Photo by Scholastic Photo. Co.] [Parson's Green.ass him. As the herd approached the sound A YOUXG COLLARED PECCARY. was like that of a whirlwind through the In this specimen the white collar from which the species takes its name is bushes. very clearly displayed.

THE HIPPOPOTAMUS.

BY F. C. SELOUS.

exist Two species of the Hippopotamus Family 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. it has long The COMMON HIPPOPOTAMUS, though been banished from the Lower Nile, and has more recently been practically exterminated in the British

By penniision offferr Carl Hagenbeck, Hamburg. 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-it is not found below bourhood of Cape Town. Now still to exist inKhartum, on the Nile; but in Southern Africa a few hippopotamuses are said 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 all theone who approached it. In my own experience I have met with the hippopotamus in 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. is fond of The huge mouth of the hippopotamus (see Coloured Plate), which the animal 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

Photo by J. IF. McLellan] [Highbury.

HIPPOPOTAMUS DRINKIXG.

The enormous breadth of the muzzle, as well as the small nostrils, which can be closed at will, are clearly displayed in this posture. 319

the World The Living Animals of320 to rapidly cut down great quantities of the coarse grass and reeds upon which these animals exclusively feed when living in uninhabited countries. When, however, their haunts are in the neighbourhood of native villages, they often commit great havoc in the corn-fields of the it was their fondness for sugar-cane inhabitants, trampling down as much as they eat; and which brought about the destruction of the last herd of hippopotamuses surviving in Natal.

The lower canine teeth or tusks of the hippopotamus grow to a great size, and in bulls may weigh from 4 Ibs. to 7 Ibs. each. They are curved in shape, and when extracted from the jaw form a complete half-circle, and have been known to measure upwards of 30 inches over the curve. In life, however, not more than a third of their length protrudes beyond the gums. During the daytime hippopotamuses are seldom met with out of the water. They lie and doze all day long in the deep pools of the rivers they frequent, with only their eyes, ears, and nostrils above the surface, or else bask in the sun on the tail of a sandbank, looking like so many gigantic pigs with their bodies only partially submerged. Sometimes they will lie and sleep entirely out of water amongst reeds. I have seen them feeding in the reed-beds of the great swamps of the Chobi just at sundown, but as a rule they do not leave the water until after dark. At night they often wander far afield, especially in the rainy season, in search of suitable food; and after having been fired at and frightened, I have known a herd of hippopotamuses to travel at least five-and-twenty miles along the course of a river during the ensuing night, in order to reach a larger and deeper pool than the one in which they had been molested. Photo by Lord Delamere] [NortJiwich. Although the hippopota- HIPPOPOTAMUSES BATHING. mus is thoroughly at home A. hippopotamus stays under water for about 2J minutes at a time, and then just shows part of its in the hottest parts of Africa, head above water while it draws a fresh breath. and appears to thrive in the tepid waters of all the rivers which flow through the malarious coast regions of the tropical portions of that continent, it is also found at a considerable altitude above the sea, and in quite small streams where the temperature of the water during the winter months cannot be many degrees above freezing-point. I have personally met with hippopotamuses in the Manyami River, not far from the present town of Salisbury, in Mashonaland. The country there has an altitude of about 5,000 feet above sea-level; and the water was so cold on the last occasion on which I came across the animals in question July, 1887 that, if a basinful was left out during the night, ice quite an eighth of an inch in thickness would be formed over it before morning. There was, however, never any ice on the river itself. During the rainy season, when the grass and reeds are green and succulent, hippopotamuses become enormously fat, especially in the higher and colder portions of their range, and retain a good deal of their fat right through the driest season of the year. Old bulls are usually very lean; but I have seen cows the greater part of whose carcases, after the skin had been stripped off, was covered with a layer of fat from 1 inch to 2 inches in thickness. The meat of these animals is dark red in colour, and more like beef than pork. To my mind, that of a young animal is most isexcellent in flavour, and far preferable to that of a lean antelope. The fat, when prepared, as good as the best lard, from which, indeed, it is hardly distinguishable. The skin of the

Photo by J. W. McLellan, Highbury

A HIPPOPOTAMUS GAPING

The position of the animal displays the enormous capacity, and likewise the powerfu wer tusks; th hortness of the limbs is also well exhibitec

UNIV. OF

CALIFORNIA

The Pig and Hippopotamus 321

By permission of Herr Carl Hagenbeck] [Hamburg.

BABY HIPPOPOTAMUS, AGED SIX MONTHS.

The flesh of a, young hippopotamus is said to have an excellent flavour. Natives often follow shooting expeditions in order to secure some of its meat.

hippopotamus is smooth and hairless, and in adult animals quite 1 inch in thickness on the upper parts of the body. Hippopotamuses are said to be capable of remaining under water for. ten or twelve minutes. Should, however, a herd of these animals be watched but not fired at from the bank of a river in which they are passing the day, they will all sink below the surface of the water as soon as they become aware of and more or less alarmed by the presence of the intruder, but each member of the herd will come up to breathe at intervals of from one to two minutes. I have seen hippopotamuses so tame and unsuspicious of danger that they clothes on him thatallowed me the first human being probably with any kind of hat or they had ever seen to take up a position within fifty yards of them on the edge of the deep rock-bound pool in which they were resting without showing any signs of alarm. They simply stared at me in an inquisitive sort of way, raising their heads higher out of the water, and constantly twitching their little rounded ears; and it was not until a number of natives came up and began to talk loudly that they took alarm, and, sinking out of sight, retreated to the farther end of the pool. I once took the length of time with my watch for more than an hour that a hippopotamus which I was trying to shoot remained under water. This animal, a cow with a new-born calf, had made an attack upon one of my canoes. It first came up under the canoe, tilting one end of it into the air and almost filling it with water. Then it made a it down under therush at the half-swamped craft, and, laying its huge head over it, pressed water and sank it. There were four natives in the canoe at the time of the attack, all of whom swam safely to an island in the river the Zambesi. After the accident which caused me a good deal of loss and inconvenience I tried to shoot this unprovoked aggressor, but unsuccessfully, as the river was too broad to allow me to get anything but a long shot at her. The shortest time she remained under water during the seventy minutes I was paying attention 41

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