HIPPOPOTAMUS, the Behemoth of the Old Testament, is found in Africa in great numbers, and the existence of two species is suspected. The natives kill it with spears after enticing it into a pitfall. The flesh is delicate and succulent ; the layer of fat next the skin makes excellent bacon, technically denominated hippopotamus speck at the Cape. The curbaj whip (hence the Spanish Corvacho and French Cravache) is made of the hide. The ivory of the great canine teeth is highly valued by dentists for making artificial teeth. No other ivory keeps its colour equally well ; and the canine teeth are imported into England for this pur pose, and fetch about 30s. per pound. One of the specific distinctions pointed out by M. Desmoulins is the comparative abrasion of the canines in the suppOsed two species.
The people of Rome several times had oppor tunities of witnessing hippopotami, amongst other wild beasts, collected for the triumphal exhibitions of their emperors. But for 1500 years, until 25th May 1850, Europe had not seen one. The Zoolo
gical Society of Loudon then obtained a male, and afterwards a female, which bred. That received in 1850 was the first living seen in Great Britain since the Triassic age of the world.
The has been discovered in a • fossil state in Ava and in the Sub-Himalaya, where there is an admixture of extinct and exist ing forms, well preserved,—remains of hippopota mus, rhinoceros, mastodon, peculiar forms of elephas, and very remarkable bovines, dissimilar from those now in India ; also, of animals still existing in India, are found the fossil Emys (Pangshura) teeth. The embedded shells are all of species still living in the valley, and indicate that the changes have been gradual from the time that the hippopotami wallowed in the muds, and rhinoceros roamed in the swampy forests, of the country where mastodons abounded, and where the strange forms of the sivatherium, dinotherium, and camelopardis existed.—Eng. Cyc.; Hamilton's Sinai, p. 339.