ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



879 



able color scheme with all reserve, and subject 

 to amendment. 



We await with keen interest Hans Schom- 

 burgk's account of the habits, and life history 

 in general, of this rare and strange animal. We 

 have been informed, however, that it makes its 

 home in swamps and wet forests, often at a 

 distance of several miles from the nearest river 

 or lake, and that it is not at all dependent upon 

 large bodies of water, as its colossal relative 

 always seems to be. We may confidently expect 

 to hear that it subsists on fleshy and tender 

 plants and reeds, and grass that is not too coarse 

 and tough to be masticated by small jaws. 



Regarding the habitat of this animal, we can 

 at present only describe it as the interior of the 

 Republic of Liberia and regions adjacent; a 

 designation not quite so vague as it seems, be- 

 cause Liberia as a whole is not large. We 

 imagine that Herr. Schomburgk penetrated about 

 200 miles into the interior from the coast, but 

 the awful character of that region would make 

 this equal in difficulty and hardships encountered, 

 to about 500 miles in East Africa. Heretofore 

 it has been known that the species inhabits the 

 Little Scarcies River, St. Paul's River, Du 

 Queah River and Fishermen Lake. 



The Pygmy Hippopotamus is, besides its only 

 living relative, a midget, no more. Caliph, the 

 enormous male hippo, who now stands in a 

 mounted state in the American Museum of 

 Natural History, stood four feet, nine and one- 

 half inches in shoulder height, twelve feet and 

 four inches in length from end of nose to root 

 of tail, his circumference was eleven feet and 

 eight inches, and his weight has been given as 

 close to 6,500 pounds. Beside the enormous 

 bulk of a full grown male hippo of the common 

 species, it is like a six-months-old human infant 

 of thirteen pounds weight beside a man of 180 

 pounds. The disparity in size fairly challenges 

 the imagination. In bulk, one adult male Nili- 

 hippo weighing 6,000 pounds is equal to four- 

 teen adult male Pygmy Hippos! Strange to say. 

 notwithstanding the fact that many big hip|)os 

 have died in Zoological Gardens during the last 

 hundred years, we can not learn that thus far 

 anyone ever has had the enterprise to ascertain 

 the weight of a full-grown male by actually 

 weighing its remains. When our Peter the Great 

 passes from earth, he will be weighed. 



Up to this time, so Mr. Renshaw informs us. 

 only one living specimen of tiie Pygmy Hipjx) 

 ever has been sent from Africa to Europe. Tiiat 

 was in 1873, when one was sent to the Dublin 

 Zoological Gardens, arriving at that institution 

 in a dying condition, and lived there only 

 "about five minutes." Not a single living speci- 



men ever has been exhibited, prior to the arrival 

 of our specimens at Hamburg on June 15, 

 1912. 



The museum of the Philadelphia Academy of 

 Science contains the only series of museum 

 specimens of the Pygmy Hippo now in America, 

 embracing a mounted skin, a mounted skeleton, 

 two skulls, and an unmounted skeleton. The 

 Leyden Museum (Holland) is the only other 

 which can be said to possess a series of speci- 

 mens. There is one mounted skin in the Lon- 

 don Museum and another in the Paris. This, 

 with the mounted skin of the Dublin calf, in the 

 Dublin Museum, completes the list of Museum 

 specimens now extant, of an important species 

 that was discovered and described sixty-eight 

 years ago ! 



Our unique pair of living Pygmy Hippos will 

 reach New York about July 10, 1912, and 

 will be exhibited in the Elephant House. For 

 their accommodation, a small additional bathing- 

 tank, communicating with their apartment, will 

 be constructed immediately. The cost of the 

 pair was $12,000, and as zoological rarieties 

 thev are well worth their cost. 



3LU.I. HIPPO CAUGHT IN A I'lT 

 FEBRUARY 



