12 ZOOLOGICAL 
us. Just what finally became of the other two 
we do not know. In our Buiietin for July 
1912, there appears a very interesting narrative 
by Schomburgk entitled “On the Trail of the 
Pygmy Hippo.” 
Never since we began to worry over the idio- 
svnerasies and troubles of wild animals have 
we had any more satisfactory animals than those 
In appetite, health and general 
deportment they must be marked 100 per cent. 
No one of the trio ever has been sick for so much 
They eat their 
rations—cheerfully, gratefully and copiously. 
The large and fully mature male came living 
alone, and he has lived so ever since, at the 
east end of the Elephant House. The other 
two, male and female, were slightly under the 
age and size of maturity, and being happily 
pygmy hippos. 
as one day, or missed a meal. 
paired we built a tank for them at the west 
end of the Elephant House, and they have al- 
ways lived together. 
The adult pygmy hippo is provided with long 
and sharp hog-like tusks set in the lower jaw, 
and he can bite savagely and effectively if 
Just those formidable weapons 
five or six inches long are chambered in the 
muzzle when the mouth is closed is Dame Na- 
ture’s private affair, but when the mouth is 
widely and truculently open, it reminds us of the 
coiled-rattlesnake flag tahive 
“Don’t tread on me!” 
crossed. how 
bearing warning 
During the past four years, or ever since the 
female hippo attained her majority, we have 
closely and carefully watched for the birth of 
offspring. The perfect vigor of both animals 
three years ago led to mating, but the signs of 
offspring that Keeper Walter Thuman thought 
were observable each time proved barren of 
results. By means of hot water pipes the bath- 
water in the tank was kept at a temperature all 
around 80 degrees. The fat and always rotund 
condition of the female was so pronounced that 
the usual signs of maternity were negligible. 
Finally, on the morning of December 23, like 
a bolt falling from a clear sky, the female gave 
birth to a male baby at 10:30 A.M. 
Dr. Blair was on the spot within five minutes. 
He found the male greatly excited by the event, 
and making considerable trouble, but the animal 
was promptly isolated. The labor lasted about 
twenty minutes, and was entirely successful. 
When the writer reached the scene the full de- 
livery had just been accomplished, the umbilical 
cord had been cut, and the wet and helpless 
SOCIETY 
BULLETIN 
infant was floundering on the bare concrete floor, 
trying to rise. 
Realizing that contact with the cold floor 
would in all probability produce pneumonia, the 
struggling infant was lifted and held in a pail 
of milk-warm water while the keepers hurriedly 
emptied and cleaned the tank, and ran into it 
enough warm water to cover the bottom to a 
depth of three inches. The temperature of this 
water carefully maintained, to prevent 
pneumonia and promote vigor. 
was 
It was at that point that our real trouble 
began. Owing to a fatal non-development of the 
gluteus major and the biceps, or flexor muscles 
at the rear of thigh (very effectively shown in 
the photograph of the infant hippo), the hind 
legs of the infant were half-way powerless, and 
unable to support the body, or to walk. While 
the fore-quarters stood well erect, the hind legs 
floundered helplessly and were dragged along. 
That muscular defect proved fatal to natural 
All the resources of the Park finally 
proved unable to control conditions sufficiently 
to render it possible for the baby hippo to nurse. 
nursing. 
The mother was passive toward the men as long 
as they did not attempt to handle her offspring, 
but whenever they attempted to handle it, she 
would threaten them so savagely that they were 
quite thwarted in their friendly and very per- 
sistent attempts to hold the baby in a position 
to nurse. 
Realizing from the outset that about ninety 
per cent of the baby’s chances to survive lay in 
being nourished by its mother, for twenty-four 
hours all efforts were bent upon accomplishing 
that result. It seemed as if with all our re- 
sources we surely could devise some means by 
which that result could be achieved. 
But the pygmy hippo mother was not made 
by Nature at all right for suckling weak babies 
who are wholly unable to stand or to walk. Her 
fat round body is shaped like a barrel, and the 
two small and conical teats, flattened in order 
to function in a very narrow space, are most 
dificult for any baby hippo to attain. The 
problem was like a big sack of wheat endeavor- 
ing to suckle a sack of salt. 
The mother was from the first fully conscious 
of the status of her offspring, and anxious to 
be a good mother to it. The baby was well 
aware of the necessity of nursing and anxious 
to promote that result. Scores of times the in- 
fant struggled violently to get upon its feet, 
and failing that, to drag itself to its mother. 
