II. 64--8.

Calpurnius is generally referred to the time of Carus and Numerian, about
283 A.D.; but his date is not determined by any satisfactory proof. (See
Dr. Smith's _Dict. of Ancient Biog. and Myth_. in v.)

There is no trace of a live hippopotamus having been brought to Europe
between the time specified in the last of these testimonies and the middle
of the sixteenth century. When Belon visited Constantinople, he saw there a
living hippopotamus, which had been brought from the Nile:

"L'animal que j'ai veu vivant a Constantinople (he says), apporte du
Nil, convenoit en toutes marques avec ceulx qu'on voit gravez en
diverses medales des Empereurs."--_Observations_, liv. ii. c. 32. fol.
103. b. ed. 1564.

Belon returned to Paris from the Levant in the year 1550. In his work on
fishes, p. 17., he speaks of another Frenchman, lately returned from
Constantinople, who had seen the same animal. (See Schneider on _Artedi
Synonym. Piscium_, p. 267.) P. Gillius likewise, who visited Constantinople
in 1550, saw there the same hippopotamus, as he states in his description
of the elephant, Hamburg, 114. (Schneider, _Ib._ p. 316.)

Your correspondent, MR. G. S. JACKSON (Vol. ii., p. 277.) controverts the
opinion expressed in my former note, that none of the Greek writers had
seen a live hippopotamus. He thinks that "Herodotus's way of speaking would
seem to show that he was describing from his own observation;" and he
infers that the animal was found at that time as far north as the Delta,
from the fact, mentioned by Herodotus, of its being held sacred in the nome
of Papremis. But, in the first place, it does not follow that, because the
hippopotamus was held sacred in the Papremitic nome, it was found in the
{458} Nile as low as that district. In the next place, there is nothing in
the words of Herodotus to indicate that he had seen the object of his
description. (ii. 71.) On the other hand, the substance of his description
tends strongly to the inference that he had _not_ seen the animal. It is
difficult to conceive that any eye-witness could have described a
hippopotamus as having the hoofs of an ox, with the mane and tail of a
horse. His information as to javelins being made of its skin was doubtless
correct, and he may perhaps have seen some of these weapons. Cuvier
conjectures that the original author of the description in Herodotus had
seen only the teeth and some part of the skin of the real hippopot