The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-01-04
THE HIPPOPOTAMUS.
Some of the Traits That Distinguish n Most
Peculiar Animal.

Some of the Traits That Distinguish Most
Peculiar Animal.
Out of large number of representa-
tives of the genus once widely spread
over the old world, the common and
pigmy hippopotami, both of which are
confined to Africa, are the only species
which have survived to the present day;
and the reader will at once see, when
we have taken into consideration the
probable habits of the extinct kinds,
how fortunate it is that these two
widely different forms have been pre-
served to us. We're there only the
common species, We should have had
no conception that any hippopOtamus
possessed the habits characterizing the
smaller kind, and might have been led
in drawing very erroneous differences
as to the mode of life and habitat of
fossil hippopotami.
The general appearance of the com
mon hippopotamus is SO familiar to all
that we need not spend much time in
discussing it. We may observe, how
ever, that the enormous size of the
head, and especially the great width
of the mouth, the prominent position
of the eyes and nostrils, the minute
ears, bulky body, short and stout
limbs, and short tail, are among the
most striking external features of the
creature. The presence of hoofs -four
in number on each FOOT shows that the
hippopotamus belongs to the great
order of hOofed, or ungulate, mammals,
and the thickness of its nearly naked
hide led the older naturalists to place
it among what used to be called the
pachyGerms. 1t has been sEowned,
however, by anatomical Investigations
that the group thus designated, which
included such totally different forms
as elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippo
potami, is an entirely artificial one, and
that hippopotami, together with
their near relatives, the pigs,
are much more closely connected with
the ruminants. The hippopotamus is
the most primitive of all the even-toed
hoofed mammals that have survived
to the present day, and is, therefore, a
creature of special interest to the he
lever in evolution. 1t is, indeed
member of the great group from which
the ruminants are considered to have
originated: although if the reader
should be led from this statement to
jump to the conclusion that hippopO-
tamus was in any sense an ancestor of
the giraffe he would be led into griev-
Gus error. AS is the case with nearly
all existing animals of a primitive type,
-, r,f
ancestral form, IS a side branch from
the original stock, which has developed
certain specialized features not found
in the latter. To show that this is the
case, we have but to study the teeth of
the varions species of hippopotami,
which are of such nature as to show
conclusively that those of the rumi
nants could not have been derived from
them.
That the hippopotamus is the animal
indicated in the book of job under the
name of behemoth is, according TO
Canon Tristram, undOubted, but there
is no evidence that the jews were ac-
quaited with it otherwise than during
their sojourn in Egypt. 1t is true, in
deed, that the writer Just mentioned
suggests that it's range may have eX-
tended eastward as far as Palestine,
but this is a mere conjecture, and had
the creature ever lived there the expe-
ditions which have from time to time
explored that country ought to have
found some of its remains. In the
Pleistocene and upper Pliocene deposits
of southern and central Europe there
occur, however, numerous remains of
hippopotamus which can not be speci-
fically distinguished from the existing
African form, although it was gen.
orally of rather larger size. The diff
ference in life was at one time thought
to indicate that the fossil form was
distinct species, but the discovery
many years ago of a half-fossilized jaw
in the alluvium of the Nile, near Kala-
beshi, in Nubia, showed that in former
times the African hippopotamus at
tanned dimensions as large as the Eu-
ropean form. In England the hippo
potamus ranged at least as far north as
Leeds, and it is a remarkable circum-
stance that in many places its remains
have been found in association with
those of the reindeer. How animals
now inhabiting countries with such to-
tally different climatic conditions as
tropical Africa and Lapland could have
lived in the same country at the
same time, is very difficult to under
stand. If the hippopotamus had been
different from the living African one
we might have regarded it as ter
restial species like that OF Liberia, and
thus perchance capable of standing a
colder climate; but being identical with
the former we are perforce compelled
to believe that its habits were similar,
and that in its habitat the rivers must
have been more or less free from ice
throughout the year. Whatever may
be the true explanation of the diff
Guilty, it is pretty clear that the theory
of summer and winter migrations viii
not hold good, as the hippopotamus is