Liberia ^ 



those forms isolated on Mediterranean islands that it gradually 

 dwindled to its present degree of shortness ? The North 

 Chinese goral, a Capricorn allied to the chamois, tahr, serow, 

 etc., has such a long tail that it is called Urotragus longicaudatus. 

 It is possible that these capricorns, which are certainly the 

 ancestors of the goats and sheep, still retained the primitive 

 long tail of the earlier ruminants before they 2;^ve rise to 

 so many different forms such as the musk ox, the Rocky 

 Mountain goat, the takin, the tahrs, the goats, and the 

 sheep, in all of which, with four exceptions, the tail has 

 subsequently dwindled to a length of two or three inches or 

 to a mere stump. 



Sheep of this black and white maned type are very common 

 throughout Liberia, and give excellent mutton. The fat-tailed 

 form only makes its appearance on the extreme north, within 

 the limits ot the Mandingo country ; but from what I can 

 learn it is rather a transitional type, such as is met with in the 

 western parts of Uganda. 



The only other domestic animal of the Liberian natives 

 which needs any allusion is the Muscovy duck, an introduction, 

 of course, from Brazil, brought to the West Coast of Africa 

 originally by the Portuguese. It has become, however, as 

 well established in the coast-lands of Liberia as elsewhere in 

 West Africa, and indeed is met with in some of the native 

 villages at a hundred miles from the coast. A pair of these 

 birds may be seen in the illustration on p. 481 ot the Bwe 

 stream, which is about that distance from the sea, in the county 

 of Maryland. 



The foregoing sketch ot the origin of the Negro's domestic 

 beasts, birds, and cultivated plants is part of the unwritten 

 history of West Africa prior to the fifteenth century a.d. The 



920 



