-*> Fauna: Mammals 



It is sufficiently abundant in Liberia and Sierra Leone to 

 have entered much into the native folklore. The indigenous 

 Negroes of Liberia highly respect its supposed intelligence or 

 cunning. They say that it is an animal which sleeps with its 

 eyes open, and is extremely difficult to surprise. It is largely 

 nocturnal in its habits, taking during the daytime to the water, 

 where it will remain for hours immersed, with only just its nose 

 above the surface. It swims and dives with ease. Its food of 

 course is vegetable (in spite of the native story that it eats fish), 

 and it would appear to subsist mainly on grass, water-weeds, 

 water-lily roots, etc. 



In the folklore of the Vai and Mende peoples and perhaps 

 elsewhere in Guinea, it sometimes takes the place of the hare, 1 

 " Brer Rabbit " (the hare being equivalent in many ways to 

 our a Reynard the Fox"). Throughout Africa the Hare is the 

 basis of many superstitions, prejudices and beast stories. This 

 feeling about the hare, as we know, extended even to the 

 ancient Jews, who for some reason highly disapproved of it as an 

 article of food. There are apparently no hares in the densely 

 forested regions of Liberia and Sierra Leone, and the place there- 

 fore of this (supposed) astute animal in the beast stories is taken 

 by the Water chevrotain or the Royal antelope. The native 

 name of the Dorcatherium in the Vai language is gberima : in the 



DO o 



Kru tongues, tu. 



The natives declare that the Water chevrotain will some- 

 times walk or climb up a sloping and projecting tree trunk, 

 branch, or snag which overhangs a stream, and lie prone along 

 its surface. Its coat is then so like the dappled appearance 

 of the bark that it is hard to distinguish the Chevrotain from 



1 It is not altogether certain that this is so. The little creature known as 

 11 Cunnie Rabbit " in the Sierra Leone English, or sail in the Vai tongue, is probably 

 the Royal antelope Neotragus pygnuzus. 



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