Liberia *•- 



with white spots and stripes already referred to in the case 

 of the pigs and tragelaphs. 



The red buffalo of Liberia is timid and shy unless 

 wounded and standing at bay, when its fierceness and dangerous- 

 ness are fully equal to those of its big relative on the east. 

 The natives dread it less than the elephant but more than 

 the leopard. The Americo-Liberians call it " bush cow," 

 but have hitherto made no effort whatever to tame and 

 domesticate the calves, though this might very easily be done 

 in a land like Liberia, where domestic cattle thrive. The 

 natives do not appear to recognise any difference between red 

 and blackish brown buffaloes, calling both varieties by the same 

 name for buffalo, which in Mandingo and Vai is si or sigi, 

 in Kpwesi ieu, Gora odyi, and in the Kru languages /«z or 

 Jiiin. Captain d'Ollone states that the two types of buffalo — ■ 

 Bubalus nanus and B. planiceros — are both found in Liberia ; 

 the former in the forests and the latter in the more open 

 country in the north. 



The most primitive group of the Antelopes is perhaps 

 in some respects the Cephalophine sub-family, which includes 

 the Indian four-horned antelope, Telraceros, but which, with 

 that exception, is an African group of something like twenty- 

 three species. These African forms of the genus Cephalophus 

 are usually known in English as duiker.^ This is a Cape 

 Dutch word meaning " ducker " or " diver." It was given 

 to the smaller members of the group in South Africa by the 

 Boers, from their habit of diving or ducking into the herbage 

 to escape observation. With two exceptions they are small- 

 sized antelopes. These exceptions, of which more will be said 

 later, are both of them inhabitants of Liberia, one of them being 

 apparently absolutely restricted to that country in its range. 



' Pronounced in English "dyker," in Dutcli "doiker." 

 734 



