274 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



vision of the bush pigs, described the East African race as 

 dismonis, basing his description upon a single adult female 

 specimen collected by the Reverend W. Morris on the slopes 

 of Mount Kilimanjaro. The differences assigned by Major 

 were the narrowness of the skull behind the orbits and the 

 black coloration of the body, which showed very little red- 

 dish or tawny hair. A female specimen collected by Doctor 

 W. L. Abbott on Kilimanjaro is, however, quite a bright 

 red on the body and is not distinguishable in color from 

 specimens from the Kikuyu forests of Mount Kenia and 

 Nairobi. An old boar from Nairobi shows a mixture of 

 white and black hair on the body, with a whitish dorsal 

 mane and a white head, practically no reddish or tawny 

 color showing an5rwhere. The ears are black and the legs 

 blackish with a sprinkling of white hairs down the front of 

 the legs. The female from Kilimanjaro is rufous or fer- 

 ruginous on the sides of the body, with a white dorsal mane, 

 black legs, and white head. Specimens from Uganda in the 

 British Museum are quite like these in general coloration 

 as well as shape of skull. The Nairobi boar measured in 

 the flesh: head and body, 51 inches; tail, 14 inches; hind 

 foot, io>^ inches; ear, 5^2 inches. Greatest length of 

 skull, 13^ inches. The length of an adult female skull 

 is 13 inches. 



Bush pigs, although quite abundant, are seldom se- 

 cured by sportsmen, owing to their nocturnal habits and 

 the dense nature of the cover in which they dwell. They 

 are more abundant about the edges of native shambas than 

 in uninhabited regions and have no difficulty in outwitting 

 the simple devices planned by the natives for their de- 

 struction. Much damage is done to the native crops by 

 the night forays of the bush pigs, as they travel in herds of 

 from ten to twenty individuals or more. Specimens are 

 exceedingly rare in museums, and in no institution are any 

 of the races represented by a series of individuals from 

 the same spot which would make possible the determina- 

 tion of the limits of individual variation. Single speci- 

 mens are in the National Museum representing Nairobi, 

 Kilimanjaro, the Mau forest, and the Taita Hills. A few 

 other specimens have been examined in the British Mu- 

 seum from Kilimanjaro, the Tana River, and Uganda. 



