Liberia ^ 



The West African hartebeest {Bubalis major) penetrates to 

 the more open country at the back of the Liberian forests, 

 and I give here a photograph of a pair of horns obtained in 

 the interior of Liberia by Lieutenant-Colonel Powney in 1903. 

 This seems to be the only form of true hartebeest found in 

 West Africa outside the forest belt, apart from the one or more 

 species oi Damaliscus. The beautiful Damaliscus korrigum^ with its 

 satin-like mauve-brown coat marked on the front and hind limbs 

 with velvet-black and elsewhere with pale yellow, a near relative 

 of the allied South African sassaby and the East African topi 

 (so near, in fact, that the distinctions are scarcely specific), may 

 also be found to penetrate into the northern parts of Liberia. 



The order of the Sirenia is represented in the rivers of 

 Liberia by the well-known Manatee {Manatus senegaknsis). 

 Most of my readers will remember that the Sirenia are 

 herbivorous aquatic mammals, represented at the present day 

 by the manatee and the dugong, of vague, primitive, ungulate 

 affinities, with no hind-limbs (of which, however, there are traces 

 in some extinct forms), and the fore-limbs of five toes modified 

 into paddles. The lips are enormously cieveloped, and are of 

 great assistance to the animal in grasping herbage. The Manatee 

 has lost all traces of front teeth in the adult, merely retaining 

 its molars for grinding, whereas the East Asiatic dugong retains 

 the incisor teeth in the upper jaw. The manatee is found in 

 all the Liberian rivers of any size from the sea-coast up to 

 the first falls. Jt is said also to be found in the waters of the 

 Upper Niger. If this is the case, and the statement is not due 

 to an error or to confusing the manatee with the hippopotamus,^ 



' According to various writers the manatee is a totem for a large section 

 of the Mandingo race ; but the writers like Koelle who make this statement 

 seem to be not very clear in their discrimination between the hippopotamus 

 and the manatee, classing both together as some herbivorous river-dwelling 

 mammal. 



744 



