THE PIGMY HIPPOPOTAMUS 
HIPPOPOTAMUS LIBERIENSIS 
T HE pigmy or Liberian hippopotamus is entirely unknown to 
the writer of these articles, and as the country in which it lives 
is difficult of access and very unhealthy, few British sportsmen 
have as yet penetrated to its habitat. The Liberian hippopotamus 
was, however, discovered and its existence made known to 
science by Dr Samuel G. Morton, of the Philadelphia Academy 
of Science, as long ago as in 1844; but from that time onwards until 
quite recently very little further information concerning the habits and 
life-history of this interesting animal was ever obtained, although a 
living specimen of the species was acquired by the Dublin Zoological 
Gardens in 1873. This animal, however, which was immature, died 
almost immediately after its arrival at the gardens, and its mounted 
skin is now in the Dublin Museum. Captain Murray, one of the very 
few British sportsmen who has ever actually seen a pigmy hippo- 
potamus, shot a full-grown male of this species near Salon, on the 
Manwa River, about two miles from the Liberian frontier, early in 
1908. This animal is said to have stood three feet one inch at the 
shoulders, and to have measured from nose to tip of tail six feet 
six and a half inches, the tail itself being one foot in length, and very 
much longer, therefore, proportionately than in H. amphibius. In 1912 
a living pair of pigmy hippopotami, male and female, was received 
by the New York Zoological Society, and not long afterwards a fine 
male in excellent health and condition was acquired by the Zoological 
Society of London, which may now be seen in the well-known gardens in 
Regent’s Park. 
Speaking of the pair of pigmy hippos in the Zoological Park near New 
York, Mr William T. Hornaday says that the male, which he believes to 
be fully adult, stands only thirty inches high at the shoulders, and measures 
seventy inches in length from end of nose to base of tail, its weight being 
419 lb. The female, which was believed to be only two years old when 
first brought to New York, stood at that time eighteen inches at the 
shoulders and weighed 176 lb. 
Commenting on the very small size of the pigmy hippopotamus as 
compared with that of its giant relative, Mr Hornaday states that a 
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