Pi(jmy Tlipiwiwiamua from Cyprus. 246 



isolation in a limited area by the sea and the consequent shortage 

 of suitable food. On the other hand, pigmy species are not 

 necessarily found in a restricted island habitat, as proved at the 

 present day by the existence of H. liberiensis, and perhaps 

 Prjevalsky's Horse might also be cited as an example of this. 

 However, in both these it seems most probable that their diminutive 

 size is rather a primitive than a highly specialised characteristic, 

 and it also seems likely that the same may be true to a great extent 

 in the case of the Cypriote Hippopotamus ; the isolation of this last 

 in an island may rather have been chiefly the means of preserving 

 a survivor of an earlier age. As already mentioned, some of the 

 primitive characters, both in the pattern of the teeth and in 

 the structure of the skull of this species, have been noted by 

 Dr. Forsyth Major.^ 



To satisfactorily account for the extinction of the pigmy 

 Hippopotamus and Elephant of Cyprus is a task of extreme 

 difficulty, as there seems to be no evidence that either still existed 

 contemporaneously with man, and, on the other hand, in earlier 

 historical times the island was famed and coveted by different 

 nations, chiefly on account of its great fertility and the extent of 

 its forests. This extinction appears all the more inexplicable when 

 we consider that it must have taken place, comparatively speaking, 

 not so very long after the specialisation in size had been accom- 

 plished, for, according to Messrs. Bellamy and Jukes-Browne,* 

 Cyprus was still connected with the mainland in early Pleistocene 

 times, since which period Elephas Cypriotes, at all events, would 

 apparently have attained its later minute proportions. Torrential 

 inundations and other destructive agencies have been suggested as 

 the ultimate reason for the extermination of some of the species 

 peculiar to the Mediterranean islands, and this may be true in some 

 instances, possibly in Malta, but in Cyprus there seems to be no 

 indications of the occurrence of such violent phenomena during 

 the Pleistocene period. It is more likely that some climatic change, 

 and its consequent alteration of the vegetation, was the indirect 

 cause of the disappearance of this pigmy Hippopotamus, which, 

 belonging to an ancient and effete race, was unable in a new 

 direction to " undergo sufficiently rapid variation to enable it to 

 avoid getting so far out of harmony with its surroundings that 

 further existence became impossible." ^ 



1 Op. cit. 



" See Key to Geological Map of Cj-prus, p. 15 (by the former), London, 

 Stanford, 1905; and these two authors on the Geology of Cyi)rus, Brendon & Son, 

 Pl)Tnouth, 1905, pp. 55-6, and fig. 9. "With reference to this last, it is interesting 

 to find that Bishop Graziani, writing early in the seventeenth century, says of 0)^3™$ : 

 " 'Tis thought she was heretofore a peninsula joining that side of Asia, being 

 separated by the violence of a fiood " ("The Sieges of Nicosia and Famagusta," 

 edited by Claude Delaval Cobham, London, 1899). 



^ Dr. C. "W. Andi-ews, " Some Suggestions on Extinction " : Geol. Mag., Dec. IV, 

 Vol. X, January, 1903, p. 2. 



