198 Dr. Forsyth Major — Madagascar Pigmy Hippopotamus. 



from this he argues that the latter may have been evolved from 

 some member of the Choeromoridse (very primitive pigs) nearly 

 related to Acotherulum.^ The later evolution of the Hippopotami 

 must, however, have taken place outside Europe, since there is no 

 trace whatever of ancestral Hippopotami in the Oligocene and the 

 whole of the Miocene European deposits. The oldest known 

 Hippopotarmis is represented by scanty remains in the Lower Pliocene 

 lignites of Casino (Italy) ; it was hexaprotodont like the Siwalik 

 species, but more generalized than the latter in the shape of its molars. 



Taking into further consideration the pigmy Hippopotamus 

 (Choeropsis) Liheriensis from West Africa, a somewhat diverging 

 lateral branch of the stem, which, according to Stehlin, has no 

 relation with Asiatic and European fossil forms, he finally suggests 

 that " possibly at the end of the Eocene, one of the Choeromoridae, 

 nearly related to Acotherulum, found a refuge in the Southern 

 Continent [i.e. Africa], where during the Oligocene and Miocene 

 periods it was gradually farther differentiated in the direction of 

 the Hippopotaraidse." ^ This conclusion is very suggestive, especially 

 when taken together with Andrews' recent discovery of the 

 African origin of the Proboscidea. I wish to add that the Liberian 

 Hippopotamus has affinity with the Lower Pliocene fomn of Europe, 

 neither the one nor the other showing the specialized feature of 

 a trefoil pattern so characteristic of the molars of Hippopotamus 

 proper. Moreover, on account of the similarity of the lower canine 

 and incisors of the Liberian ' Chosropsis' with the same teeth of 

 Cuvier's "petit Hippopotame fossile " (H. minutus, Blainv.), supposed 

 to come from a locality in Southern France, Gervais has proposed 

 for the latter the name Choeropsis minutus.^ 



This same species has of late been discovered in caves of Cyprus 

 by Miss Dorothy M. A. Bate ; * and for reasons stated in another 

 place,^ I have come to the conclusion that Cuvier's "petit Hippopotame 

 fossile " was not found in France, but brought over from Cyprus. 

 The H. minutus from Cyprus — which has little to do with the so- 

 called 'H. minutus'' from Malta "^ — exhibits affinities with H. Liberiensis, 



1 Abhandl. Schweiz. Palaeout. Ges., 1900, pp. 433, 434. 



2 Op. cit., p. 488. 



3 Zool. et Pal. Gen., 1867-1869, i, p. 250. 



* The ossiferous breccia at Chrysostomo, near Kythrsea (Hagia Mariua), iu the 

 district of Nicosia, which in Miss Bate's opinion must hare originally been a cave, 

 and from which she obtained the bulk of her collection, was, according to the 

 account of the Dutch traveller Corneille le Brun (de Bruyn), well known in former 

 times; the Greek inhabitants regarded and worshipped these Hippopotamus remains as 

 the bones of their saints. (Corneille le Brun, " Voyage an Levant," etc., Delft, 1700, 

 p. 375.) Le Brun figures (No. 193) a bone which he had worked out with great 

 pains from the breccia, and says it resembles a human radius ; but it can clearly be 

 made out to be the femur of the IIi2}popotamns, represented from the posterior side 

 and in two pieces, the larger fragment being the proximal, the smaller the distal 

 portion. 



^ At the meeting of the Zool. Soc. of London, April loth, 1902. 



® For this Maltese species, which is intermediate in size between H. Pentlandi 

 and H. minutus, and differs besides from the latter by exhibiting the characteristic 

 trefoil pattern of the molars, I accordingly propose the new specific name of 

 JSippopotatnus Melitensis. 



