CHAPTER XXIII 



FAUNA: MAMMALS 



IT is to be feared that the most prominent aspect of the 

 fauna of Liberia which impresses the recently arrived 

 stranger is its absence ! In no part of Africa that the 

 present writer has visited has there been a more striking absence 

 of beasts, birds, reptiles, and insects from the landscape, at first 

 sight, than has been the case whenever he has visited the coast 

 regions of Liberia. That it was not always so, at any rate 

 in regard to the mammalian fauna, we know from the old 

 accounts of voyagers in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth 

 centuries. Regions like the vicinity of Cape Mount were said 

 to have swarmed with game of all kinds — elephants, antelopes, 

 buffaloes, and wild swine. At the present day those who visit 

 the interior of the forests outside the line of coast plantations 

 see something more of wild life, while further back still the 

 three or four English, French, and Liberian explorers who have 

 penetrated beyond a hundred miles from the sea-coast have 

 noticed the more abundant fauna. According to the intelligent 

 iVIandingo traders who travel from these interior regions to 

 the Liberian coast towns, what we should describe as " big 

 game" is fairly well represented on the Mandingo Plateau. 



The forests round Monrovia and in the vicinity of the 

 lx)wer St. Paul's River are sadly destitute of beasts and birds. 

 In the mangrove and pandanus swamps about the Mesurado 

 lagoon the black and white fishing vulture is a common object, 



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