THE PIGMY HIPPOPOTAMUS I 1 7 



and as it is extremely interesting to compare the 

 two forms when of the same relative size, a 

 photograph of a young calf amphibius of this 

 age has been selected for comparison with its 

 dwarf congener : most of the points of distinction 

 can be readily made out by studying the illustra- 

 tions contained in this book. 1 



Mr. C. E. Bidwell, writing in 1839 to the 

 Zoological Society, stated that although "the" 

 hippopotamus was not found in the Sierra Leone 

 River, it was very abundant in the Scarcies, fifty 

 miles off, one of the very rivers now known to be 

 a haunt of H. liberiensis : and it seems possible 

 that this casual communication was really a 

 foreshadowing of the discovery of the Liberian 

 hippopotamus. 2 The animal, however, was first 

 definitely made known to science by Dr. Morton 

 of Philadelphia, in 1844. The doctor stated that 

 four years previously he had been informed by a 

 returned African traveller that there existed in 

 Liberia a new species of hippopotamus no bigger 

 than a heifer : and added that this statement had 

 been confirmed in 1843 by the arrival in America 

 of a collection of skulls belonging to West African 



1 It is interesting to note further that the bones of the pigmy 

 hippopotamus show considerable affinity with those of H. minutus 

 (Cuvier's " petit hippotame fossile"), which have been discovered in a 

 cave in Cyprus. 



2 It seems possible, however, that the Liberian hippopotamus, 

 although not then recognised as distinct, was known to Europeans 

 long before 1839. In the Jardin des Plantes Museum there is an old 

 specimen labelled " Hippotame, Buff. Supp. III. 62, H. amphibius L. 

 du Senegal ! " 



