The uses to which the Hippopotamus can be applied cannot be considered as many; certainly the flesh is much eaten by the natives of Africa, and even by Europeans it is not to be despised, although travellers seem to disagree as to its merits. Cumming says the flesh is excellent eating, and Baker appears to agree with him, while Dr. Livingstone speaks of it as being pretty good food when one is hungry and can get nothing better, and that it is a coarse-grained meat, having something of the flavour between pork and beef. Probably the Hippopotamus is of considerable use in clearing the rivers of huge water-plants, which abound in African rivers, and which might otherwise in time so choke them up as to convert them from running streams to little else than swamps.
The whips made of Hippopotamus hide are in much request, and are highly esteemed in the neighbouring countries for their elasticity and durability; but the parts of the Hippopotamus most in request, especially by dentists, are the canine teeth, no other ivory keeping its colour so well.
THE LIBERIAN HIPPOPOTAMUS.—The second living species of Hippopotamus (H. liberiensis) is a much smaller animal than the common Hippopotamus; according to Dr. Morton, not being larger than a middle-sized heifer, though possessing the relative proportions of the common species. It rarely attains a weight exceeding four hundred pounds, or a quarter of a ton, as distinguished from the four tons’ weight of Obaysch of whom we have already spoken. One of the more important differences between them consists in the fact that the Liberian Hippopotamus possesses only two incisors in the lower jaw. A young animal belonging to this species was brought over to Great Britain in 1873, and is stated by Dr. Sclater to have been obtained on the West Coast, from the little Scarcies River. Unfortunately it died shortly after its arrival at the Zoological Gardens in Dublin.
The Hippopotamus ranged in the later Tertiary period far beyond its present home in the African rivers. In the Pliocene age it was very abundant in Italy, and has been met with as far north as Norfolk and Suffolk. In the succeeding, or Pleistocene age, also, it haunted the rivers of France and of England, having been found from the valley of the Ribble northwards. Its remains are from time to time dredged up from the bottom of the German Ocean, and are met with in the dens of Hyænas, as, for example, at Kirkdale, under conditions which prove that it fell a prey to the wild beasts then inhabiting the country. Strange to say, remains of this animal, now flourishing only under a tropical climate, are met with side by side with the remains of the Reindeer, which now flourishes only in a cold temperature, under circumstances which compel us to believe that both animals were living in the same region at approximately the same time. This singular fact can only be accounted for on the supposition that in those days the summer heat was great, and the winter cold severe, such as we find to be the case in Central Asia. These climatic extremes would allow of the same district being inhabited by these animals at different seasons of the year.
An extinct species of Hippopotamus (Hexaprotodon), which is characterised by the possession of six instead of four incisors in the upper and lower jaws; lived also in India in the later Tertiary age.
We have seen that at the present time Africa is inhabited by two kinds of Hippopotami, respectively of large and small size. We have also seen that in the Pleistocene age the larger animal inhabited Europe. It is a singular fact that abundant remains of a smaller fossil species, or Pentland’s Hippopotamus, should abound in the bone caves of Sicily, and that this dwarfed species should range from that island to Malta, Crete, and the Morea. It is closely allied to the Liberian species, although it is pretty clear that it differed from it in certain details, such as in the form of its molar teeth. A small species of Hippopotamus has been found fossil in Madagascar.
THE ANOPLOTHERES (ANOPLOTHERIDÆ).
ANOPLOTHERE RESTORED.
Certain extinct animals living in the Eocene times, included by Cuvier in his division of the Pachyderms, and closely allied to the Hogs and Hippopotami, constitute the family of Anoplotheres. They were first revealed by the genius of Cuvier from the study of the remains discovered in the gypsum quarries at Montmartre; and they owe their name and their most distinguishing character to the fact that their teeth, which in all number forty-four, form an even, unbroken series, like those in man, the canines not standing out sharp and prominent above the rest, as in the case of the Carnivores and the Palæotheres found in association with them. These animals presented remarkable variations in size, some being as large as a Pony, while others were about the size of a Gazelle. They varied also in their proportions, some being heavily built, as in the restoration given above, while others were slender and elegant like the Antelopes. They are of peculiar interest, because they are the parent stock from which in succeeding geological ages the Ruminants are derived.