114 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



rus meinertzhageni) , of which Mr. Pye Smith has had accounts 

 from the natives. However, none of these species are really 

 dangerous, nor do they have teeth so formidable as Dapper de- 

 scribes them. I am positively sure that one of the three ani- 

 mals mentioned by Dapper is the Pygmy Hippopotamus 

 (Choeropsis liberiensis) . Whenever I asked the Golah people 

 to give me a description of the Pigmy Hippo, they would say: 

 "Him be big, past pig; but him be pig, and love water. Him be 

 saucy too much. We all fear him for true. Him teeth be like 

 knife; he fit to bite man in two, one time." No wonder that 

 Dapper, who had not the slightest idea of the existence of the 

 Pigmy Hippo, should have supposed from such a description, 

 that the animal in question must be a giant pig. 



In 1844 Dr. Samuel G. Morton, of the Philadelphia Academy 

 of Sciences, found a skull of an unknown animal, to which he 

 gave the name, Choeropsis liberiensis. About 1860 the Ger- 

 man explorer, Schweizer, and a few years later Dr. Buttikofer, 

 of Rotterdam, succeeded in securing from natives a few speci- 

 mens of the Choeropsis liberiensis, which they sent to Europe. 

 Beyond the existence of the species, however, very little else was 

 known of it. The few mounted specimens I saw in English and 

 German museums resemble any other animal rather than the one 

 they are meant to represent. 



When I arrived in Liberia I was told by the Europeans in 

 Monrovia, that it was very doubtful whether such an animal as 

 the Pygmy Hippopotamus really existed. At the same time, the 

 existence of hippopotami in the Junk and St. Pauls River and 

 also in the Mano River was well known, but the description I 

 got of the animal left no room for doubt that only the common 

 hippo had been observed. 



While hunting in German East Africa on the Semikwe 

 Flats, where in the dry season hundreds of elephants congre- 

 gate, I had frequently met with small hippos, so that I began to 

 believe that I had there discovered a new kind of hippo, and a 

 near relation of the Liberian pygmy. I mention this fact only 

 to show how easily one may be deceived, and it is no wonder that 

 many a European in Liberia has taken the common hippo for 

 the Liberian dwarf species. 



If it had not been that every traveler who had visited 

 Liberia absolutely denied the existence of the large hippopota- 

 mus, I should hardly have dared to fit out my expedition to go 

 into the interior. 



My first definite information regarding the existence of the 

 Pygmy Hippo I obtained in Sheffelienville, from an old American 



