The hippopotamus, or river-horse, is perhaps the most awkward and ungainly animal in the world. His huge body almost touches the ground as he waddles clumsily along, while his short stout legs are set so far apart that they actually make a double track through the herbage. So you can easily understand that when a herd of twenty or thirty of these enormous creatures find their way into a plantation they do terrible damage, eating a good deal, and trampling down far more than they eat. Then what tremendous mouths they have! When they open their jaws wide, their heads really look as if they were splitting in two right down into their necks. And they have a most formidable array of tusks and teeth, arranged in such a manner that they mow down the herbage almost like the blade of a scythe. The hippopotamus is a native of Africa, and is found in great numbers in many of the rivers and lakes. It spends a great deal of its time in the water, often sinking its body so low that only its nostrils appear above the surface. And it can dive for eight or even ten minutes at a time, without requiring to breathe. When it rises again it generally begins to blow out the exhausted air from its lungs just before reaching the surface, whereby a column of spray is forced up into the air, just as it is by a whale when spouting. When a mother hippopotamus has a little one, she generally carries it about on her back. A writer tells us that the first hippopotamus that was ever brought to the London Zoo was caught when it was quite young, on one of the islands in the White Nile. As its mother had gone away to feed, the hunter who found it picked it up in his arms and ran off with it toward the boat. The skin of these animals, however, is thickly covered with a kind of natural oil, and the result was that the little creature was so slippery that it wriggled out of his arms just as he reached the water's edge, and plunged into the river. But luckily the boat-hook was lying close by, and with this he struck at the escaping animal, gaffed it as one does a fish, and succeeded in capturing it again with nothing more than a wound in its thick skin, which very soon healed. After a great deal of trouble it was safely brought to England, and lived in the Zoo for twenty-nine years. Another kind of hippopotamus, called the pygmy hippopotamus, is found in Western Africa. It is a very much smaller animal, being only about as big as a good-sized pig. SWINE Next on our list come the swine, among the most famous of which is the wild boar.