116 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



On another occasion I met a Hippo swimming across the 

 river. It must have been feeding in a native garden on the 

 other side. As soon as it noticed the canoe, it disappeared under 

 the water. As I thought it would remain in the river, I had the 

 canoe brought to the spot where I had seen the animal disap- 

 pear, but here again it made for shore, under water, climbed up 

 the bank and sought refuge in the bush. Under similar circum- 

 stances a big hippo would never have done so. 



I found that the Pygmy Hippo roams through the forest 

 singly or in couples. In the dry season it retires during the day 

 in tunnels washed out by the water under the overhanging banks 

 of small forest streams. It enlarges these tunnels, so as to find 

 a comfortable and cool resting place. I found some of those 

 watery dens fully 20 yards away from the actual water of the 

 stream. 



The only Hippo I shot was found in one of these holes, which 

 in all cases I observed, had both an entrance and an exit. 

 While the entrance is near the water, the exit is on the top of a 

 river bank. In the rainy season the Pygmy Hippo, I may safely 

 say, only goes near the water when it is obliged to cross a stream. 

 In the daytime it sleeps in dark recesses in the thick forest, in 

 most cases on rising ground far from water. 



The native hunters of the various tribes with which I be- 

 came acquainted always told me when I asked them about the 

 habits of the Pygmy Hippo, that they sometimes found them 

 fast asleep in the bush, covered all over with white foam. It was 

 said that if an animal is found sleeping like this, one can ap- 

 proach without any fear of waking it, cut the bush all around, 

 and touch it with one's hand. The story was told me unsolicited 

 by several men of different tribes, who had no communication 

 with one another, so that I have absolutely no reason to doubt 

 the truth of the statement, or the inference that this Pygmy is 

 a sound and even sluggish sleeper. 



The Pygmy Hippo is an adept at digging, much more so than 

 his big cousin, which as a rule, is content to graze on the herbage 

 of the streams that it inhabits. In examining the incisor teeth 

 of the Pygmy Hippo one finds that they are nearly always un- 

 evenly worn off by a hard substance which can only be the sand 

 or earth with which they are brought in contact when digging 

 for roots. The Pygmy loves the tender shoots of young rice, 

 but its staple food, when it enters a native plantation, is always 

 Cassada (Manihot vltissima) . 



