ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 

 BULLETIN 



Published by the New York Zoological Society 



Vol. XVI 



JULY 1912 



Number 52 



OUR PYGMY HIPPOPOTAMI 



By William T. Hornaday 



DESPITE all the exploring to and fro in 

 Africa, and all the slaughter of big game 

 that for a century has furiously pro- 

 ceeded, the dark continent has not yet given up 

 all her wild-animal secrets. The wonderful 

 pygmy African elephant (Elephas pumilio) 

 stole into the world very quietly in 1 905, but in 

 1889 the far more wonderful okapi burst upon 

 the scientific world like a meteor. Since that 

 astounding animal, the zoologists have been in 

 ;i mental state of what-next. 



The pygmy elephant of the Congo country 

 and elsewhere, "we-have-with-us-to-night," as it 

 were, in the lusty personality of the type speci- 

 men, now about fourteen years of age; but thus 

 far the okapi has eluded us. Major Powell- 

 Cotton literally called back the supposedly 

 almost extinct white rhinoceros by discovering 

 in the Lado District an entirely new outcrop of 

 them. For this species we have striven, but 

 thus far without avail. 



With the exception of a few museum men, 

 and the few zoologists who are specially in- 

 terested in the ungulates, the Pygmy Hippo- 

 potamus has been to the world nothing more 

 than a name, and to most people it has been 

 not even that. Its discovery was made known 

 to the world in I 8 t !- by Dr. Samuel G. Morton, 

 of the Philadelphia Academy of Science, but 

 with the publication of his papers, the diffusion 



of knowledge regarding the new species almost 

 came to an end. 



Speaking generally, and so far as the stand- 

 ard works on natural history have been con- 

 cerned, the Pygmy Hippopotamus has been almost 

 as unknown and as mythical as the queer beasts 

 of the visions of St. John the Divine. Touch- 

 ing the literature of Hippopotamus liberiensis, 

 we might almost say that there is no general 

 literature,! except a very interesting chapter in 

 Mr. Graham Renshaw's book, "Natural History 

 Essays." 



The best way in the world to secure zoological 

 varieties from the remote corners of the earth is 

 by taking pains to provide funds with which to 

 purchase the animals that bold and venturesome 

 men are ever ready to capture and bring out 

 for a price. It is impossible for any zoological 

 park or garden to capture its own animal col- 

 lections, without becoming a dealer in wild ani- 

 mals — an impossible undertaking. 



Eighteen months ago, Mr. Carl Hagenbeck, 

 ever ready to try the untried, and attempt the 

 impossible, despatched to Liberia, west coast of 

 Africa, an intrepid hunter and explorer named 



*At the hour cf going to press we received from Hamburg. 

 Major Schomburgk's account of the capture of our Pygmy 

 Hippos. It is printed in its entirety, directly following Dr. 

 Hornaday's article. — Ed. 



fProceedings of the Philadelphia Academy of Science. 

 Morton in 1844 and 1849, and Leidy (osteology) 1852. 



