having mortally wounded a large animal, which from the minor development of the tusks they knew to be a female, they were struck by observing that instead of diving, after receiving the mortal wound, she endeavoured to make her way towards a small wooded island, evidently desirous of reaching it, but sank before she could gain the banks. This aroused the suspicions of the Nubians, and a party of them, headed by an intelligent Subaltern, named "Hamet," put off in a small raft boat to the island. The density of the shrubs and herbage at the steep banks made the landing difficult, but, when it was effected, they found in a snug, leafy hollow, where the branches and creepers had been trodden down into a thick elastic bed, an obese, smooth, and shining darkcoloured object, like a hydrocephalic corpulent hog, that had undergone the operation of scalding. The creature stared at them with a pair of protuberant juicy eyes, and uttered a short interrogative grunt. On the first step forwards made by one of the soldiers to seize the prize, the young animal instinctively sprang forwards; and, with a degree of agility for which they had not given it credit, it forced its way through the opposite brush-wood down the steep bank. Hamet, who had witnessed the movement, seized the boat-hook, ran to meet the young animal, and was in time to arrest its progress by striking the hook into its haunch, just as it was making its plunge into the stream. He seized, and bore it grunting

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and snorting for its dam, to the boat, the burden being as much as his strength would permit him to carry, and the party then made off triumphantly with their prize. But how to nourish the young suckling? Teeth, at that period, the broad gaping mouth shewed none; but it was fenced round by thick soft fleshy lips, the very model for effectually exhausting the loaded dugs of a teeming mother. The difficulty was summarily solved by the characteristic relations of the governors and governed in. long enthralled Egypt. The boats of the party anchored opposite the first village, the milch-kine were driven down to the boats, their udders drained into a vast calabash, and this was speedily emptied by the hungry foundling. The process was repeated at each village as the cortège descended the Nile towards Cairo, and the young Hippopotamus was finally left in excellent condition, and with the Pasha's compliments, at the court-yard gate of our active and excellent Chargé d'Affaires, the Honourable Charles Murray.

This gentleman kindly undertook to take charge of the young river-horse during the mild winter at Cairo, and to despatch it to England at the beginning of summer in the following year. It arrived safely at the Zoological Gardens in the Regent's Park in May 1850.

Mr. Murray, in undertaking the temporary charge of this infantile rarity, had very judiciously secured the services of Corporal Hamet, who had had the

more immediate care of it during the voyage down the Nile; and it was through Mr. Murray's recommendation that the Council of the Zoological Society made an offer of remuneration, which induced the intelligent soldier, with the Pasha's permission, to accompany his charge, to which he had become attached, to England. Special preparations were made in one of the Peninsular steam-boats, in order to afford the young Hippopotamus an occasional bath during his voyage, and his martial nurse's hammock was slung above the beast's snug sleeping-birth adjoining the bath. The attachment which the uncouth baby-pachyderm had already formed for its kind nurse now manifested itself in a characteristic manner. Hamet had slept close to his charge in the court-yard of Mr. Murray's house at Cairo, and the Hippopotamus objected to lying alone in his berth on board. It was not enough that the only creature who had been to the beast in loco parentis, should be near enough to talk to his charge, to coax, and encourage it with his voice; but the animal, finding that he could touch the hammock of his keeper with his back, when it stood upright, gave Mr. Hamet no cessation from bumps and nudges 'till he was fain to quit the hammock, and make his bed on the straw by the side of his importunate charge. The Hippopotamus, having gained his point, now slept soundly and quietly, and his attendant's hammock was given up during the rest of the voyage.

The public have now had ample means of judging

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of the influence which the judicious and humane Nubian has obtained over his stupid-looking charge; and the docility of the Hippopotamus becomes the more striking and remarkable as he rapidly gains bulk, and begins to shew the formidable tusks with which, if he survives, his enormous mouth will be armed. Hamet can make the animal enter or quit his bath at command, and the signs of attachment of this specimen of a "deforme genus," as Capurnius called the Hippopotamus, are as touching as they are unmistakeable.

It was long before the young animal could be brought to bear the absence of his kind nurse and keeper during the night. For some months his food. consisted wholly of new milk; and he drained daily three fine Alderney cows for his supply. In June 1851, when the animal was about two years old, the daily supply of milk had been reduced to six quarts, and he then consumed also four quarts of oatmeal, three stable-pailfuls of clover-chaff, bran and oats, with occasional carrots or vegetable marrow, and "many horse-dung," the latter having always been, according to Hamet, a favourite dainty with the young Hippopotamus.

In June 1852, the animal, whilst acquiring the dimensions and weight above described, had shed the deciduous incisive and canine teeth, and some of the deciduous grinders. The permanent tusks already begin to form characteristic features of the mighty

mouth; and the permanent incisive teeth, and two of the permanent grinders on each side of both jaws, have appeared. The health of the animal has been uniformly excellent. The judicious arrangements effected at the Zoological Gardens, under the directions and superintendence of the energetic Secretary, Mr. Mitchell, have hitherto tended to supply the animal with ample means of gratifying his proneness to enjoy the elements, land and water, and there seems every probability that the scientific Naturalist may be able to trace all the phenomena attending the acquisition of the mature characters of this rarest of living quadrupeds, and the public enjoy the spectacle of a male Hippopotamus of full size, and with all the features that render it the most uncouth and formidable looking of beasts.

It affords me much pleasure in acknowledging my obligations to my kind friend and neighbour, Professor Owen, for this interesting account of the Hippopotamus, of which we know so little from the days of Pliny to the present time. That the Behemoth of Job, is the Hippopotamus or River-horse of the present day, admits of but little doubt. Bochart, in his "Hierozoicon," or Account of the animals mentioned in Scripture, has taken great pains to prove this; and his arguments appear conclusive. scenes described in the Book of Job are generally supposed to be laid in countries bordering on Egypt; and as the Elephant does not appear to have been

The