ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



883 



BUILDING A TRANSPORT BASKET FOR CARRYING A 



PYGMY HIPPO 



Skeleton basket on the left 



into one of the above mentioned holes. I sent 

 my boy round, and when he started poking into 

 the hole with a stick, a responsive grunt fol- 

 lowed, and not two yards from me the head of 

 the much coveted animal appeared. I still car- 

 ried my elephant gun. As my shot rang through 

 the forest, one of the rarest animals of the 

 African fauna lay before me. 



My camp was far away in the bush, and to 

 my great regret I had to abandon the skeleton. 

 It was only with the greatest difficulty that I 

 managed to skin the animal and have the skin 

 brought by my two hunters to the tent. 



In spite of all difficulties, however. I had not 

 given up the idea of catching a hippo alive. 



Wherever I found a likely place 



I had a pit dug. It is easy to 



catch the great East African 

 Hippo, which keeps continually 



in the same water and uses the 



same tracks. With the Pygmy 



Hippo, it is very hard to even 



find a place where there is the 



slightest chance of catching one, 



because this brute roams through 



the forest like an elephant or a 



pig. mostly goes singly, though 



sometimes in pairs, and rarely 



uses the same track twice. 



Meanwhile over a hundred 



pits had been made by my men, 



all carefully dug seven feet deep 



and covered so that not the 



sharpest eye could detect any 



sign of danger. 



At last, two days after I shot 



my first animal, and when I was 



still working on its thick skin, 

 a boy rushed to my tent breath- 

 lessly shouting from afar: 



"Massa! Massa! Dem Mwe 

 done catch !" 



On Xea Tindoa, an inhabited 

 island in the Lofa river, a big 

 bull had fallen into one of my 

 pits. My sergeant. Momoro, 

 started at once with a few boys, 

 to reach the place the same 

 night, and keep guard to pre- 

 vent the meat-hungry natives 

 from killing the Hippo. 



At last I had succeeded ! 

 Against the prophecies of Euro- 

 peans, Liberians and natives ! 

 And only a few days before 

 Tawe Dadwe told me: "It is im- 

 possible to catch a Mwe! It 

 has never been done, and they 

 have only been shot after they 

 have been caught in the pits. They are too 

 dangerous. Many a hunter has been killed. You 

 white men know a lot, but here you are trying 

 something that is impossible." 



Early the next morning I reached the place. 

 Before night a fence had been built around the 

 hole, and the animal was let out. It was a 

 beautiful full-grown bull, in the prime of his 

 life. 



Nothing succeeds like success ! Six days 

 after that, the second one was caught ; this time 

 a two-year-old cow. A week later, the third, 

 a young three-quarter-grown bull was taken. 

 Now I had three animals, at three different 

 places. Macca, where the little cow was caught. 



CARRYING A PYGMY HIPPO 

 Hippo transport passing through a village 



