Liberia ^#- 



abundant near the Mano River, where the natives are bold hunters 

 and collect much ivory. 



So far as my information goes, the largest tusk that has 

 been seen and weighed in the country of late years did not 

 scale more than 75 Ib.,^ and it is generally reported that the 

 elephants in Liberia, as in other parts of forested West 

 Africa, do not grow to the same size and weight as the enormous 

 developments of Eastern Equatorial Africa, wherein 250 lb. 

 for a single tusk is about the record. There is a persistent 

 story told by several recent travellers in Liberia and the 

 neighbouring Ivory Coast that the country produces a pygmy 

 breed of elephant, as it does a pygmy hippopotamus — that 

 is to say, a variety of elephant which does not grow to a 

 large size. I can only repeat this story, which may have some 

 truth in it ; but it is quite possible that the idea has arisen from 

 seeing young elephants with their milk teeth, and taking them 

 for adults. Another feature of interest which should be inquired 

 into is the shape and relative size of the ear. We have not yet 

 arrived at a correct classification of the African elephant, any 

 more than we have completely classified the African anthropoid 

 apes. Professor Matschie, the Hon. Walter Rothschild, and 

 other authorities have asserted of late that the African elephant 

 is divisible into four or five local varieties or sub-species, and that 

 the elephant of forested West Africa differs from those of the 

 open country and of East Africa by having a proportionately 

 smaller ear, which instead of ending below in a long pointed lobe 

 is rounded and curtailed in the lower part. I hope these lines 

 may meet the eyes of any Europeans or Liberians who may 

 chance to kill an elephant and who will take the trouble to 

 photograph or measure the shape and size of the ear. 



The Mandingos of the northern parts of Liberia assert that 



^ I think 80 lb. is the recorded limit. 

 712 



