The Zoological Society of London had long been anxious to obtain a living Hippopotamus for their menagerie, but without success. An American agent at Alexandria had offered 5,000_l._ for an animal of this species, but in vain; no speculator could be induced to encounter the risk and labour of an expedition to the White Nile for the purpose of securing the animal. The desire of the Zoological Society was communicated to the Viceroy of Egypt, who saw the difficulty. Hasselquist states it to have been impossible to bring the living animal to Cairo; and the French _savans_, attached to the expedition to Egypt, who ascended the Nile above Syene, did not meet with one Hippopotamus. Caillaud, however, asserts that he saw forty Hippopotami in the Upper Nile, though their resort lay fifteen hundred miles or more from Cairo. Here they were often shot with rifle-balls, but to take one alive was another matter. However, by command of the Viceroy, the proper parties were sent in search of the animal. In August, 1849, the hunters having reached the island of Fobaysch, on the White Nile, about 2,000 miles above Cairo, shot a large female Hippopotamus in full chase up the river. The wounded creature turned aside and made towards some bushes on the island bank, but sank dead in the effort. The hunters, however, kept on towards the bushes, when a young Hippopotamus, supposed to have been recently brought forth, not much bigger than a new-born calf, but stouter and lower, rushed down the bank of the river, was secured by a boatman and lifted into the boat. The captors started with their charge down the Nile. The food of their young animal was their next anxiety; he liked neither fish, flesh, fruit, nor grass. The boat next stopped at a village; their cows were seized and milked, and the young charge lapped up the produce. A good milch cow was taken on board, and with this supply the Hippopotamus reached Cairo. The colour of his skin at this time was a dull reddish brown. He was shown to the Pasha in due form; the present created intense wonder and interest in Cairo; gaping crowds filled its narrow sandy streets, and a whale at London-bridge would scarcely excite half so much curiosity. It being thought safer for the animal to winter in Cairo than to proceed forthwith on his journey, the Consul had duly prepared to receive the young stranger, for whom he had engaged a sort of nurse. Hamet Safi Cannana. An apartment was allotted to the Hippopotamus in the court-yard of the Consul's house, leading to a warm or tepid bath. His milk-diet, however, became a troublesome affair, for the new comer never drank less than from twenty to thirty quarts daily.