DISTRIBUTION AND HABITS OF THE PYGMY 

 HIPPOPOTAMUS. 



By Major Hans Schomburgk, F. R. G. S. 



So far as we are aware, this is the first published description of the 

 Pygmy Hippo in its natural haunts in the Liberian forest that has been 

 drawn from personal observations, and therefore it is of absorbing inter- 

 est. The accompanying map of distribution was prepared by Maj. 

 Schomburgk especially for the Zoological Society, and that also now 

 appears for the first time. — Editor. 



EVEN though the Dark Continent has reluctantly given up 

 one secret after another to the enterprising spirit of the 

 undaunted explorers, and while there are today hardly any 

 absolutely unknown countries left in Africa, yet there still is an 

 enormous field open to scientific explorations. 



The ancient question: "Quod novum ex Africa?" might be 

 put to-day to the returning explorer with the same right that it 

 was put to the Roman general centuries ago; for even to-day 

 every energetic explorer can endow the world with some new 

 and precious gift out of this inexhaustible treasury. Though 

 many hunters and explorers have traveled through the remote 

 parts of Africa, in the past decades, even yet they have not 

 been able to wrest from the Dark Continent all her zoological 

 treasures. 



For many years zoologists have known that in the depths 

 of the Liberian primeval forests there existed an animal which 

 European eyes had never seen alive, and that to the world in 

 general was practically unknown. 



In 1686 Dr. 0. Dapper, of Holland, published a book on the 

 exploration of the western coast of Africa, in which he gives a 

 description of the fauna of the Dappercoast, the present Liberia. 

 Dapper wrote of three different kinds of "pigs," one of which 

 is easily recognized as the bushpig, {Potamochoerus penicillatus) . 

 The other is undoubtedly the warthog (Phacochoerus aethio- 

 picus). The third one he describes as a very big, black pig, 

 which the natives fear very much on account of its big, sharp 

 teeth. 



Now, it is a well-known fact that the bushpig and the wart- 

 hog exist in Liberia, and perhaps also the giant pig {Hylochoe* 



