ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
BULLETIN 
Published by the New York Zoological Society 
Volume XXVI JANUARY, 1923 Number 1 
OUR SECOND PY 
By W. T. 
A P'TER about five years of continuous effort, 
on December 6, 1922, we achieved another 
pygmy African elephant, to fill the place 
in our Elephant House once occupied by 
“Congo,” the type specimen of Loxodon pumilio. 
Our new prize was captured on August 30, at 
Lake N’Gobi, which is in French West Africa, 
eighty miles southeast of Fernan Vaz, and 
about fifty miles from the Atlantic Coast. 
The capture was made by Captain E. A. 
Cunningham, of London, and a small party of 
natives, and by him the little animal was brought 
safely to New York. A fractured fibula in the 
right hind leg necessitated a delay of a month 
in London for treatment, and during that time 
our prize was an honored guest of the ever 
hospitable Zoological Society of London. 
Our new pygmv is true to the type of its 
species. We are having some difficulty in con¬ 
vincing the proletariat-at-large that this animal 
represents a genuine pygmy species, and is not 
merely a small baby of a well known large 
species. We are compelled to iterate and re¬ 
iterate the declaration that adults of this 
species do not exceed the standard height of 
six feet by more than a few inches. 
The new one is supposed to be about two 
and one-half years old. It stands thirty-six 
inches in height at the shoulder,—which is the 
size of the baby Indian elephant at birth! It 
is in excellent general health, but the weakness 
of the injured leg has led Dr. Blair to provide 
for that difficulty a brace of steel and leather, 
to assist nature. 
There being no reason for a quarantine, the 
new arrival was at once placed on exhibition in 
the Elephant House, where already it has at- 
GMY ELEPHANT 
Hornaday 
tracted crowds of visitors. Being a little-girl 
elephant, she has been na ;ed “Tiny.” 
Our first pygmy elephant “Congo,” arrived 
here from the German Cameroons on July 25, 
1905. At that time his height was three feet 
eight inches, and his weight was 600 pounds. 
He died of a disease that attacked his right 
fore leg, in July 1915. At that time his 
height was six feet eight inches, his weight 
2,700 pounds, and his lon^ and slender tusks 
projected twenty-three and one-half inches 
beyond his lip. 
Several years ago, we received a vague report 
of a small elephant, locally known as the 
“water elephant,” which was said to inhabit 
the swampy region surrounding Lake Leopold 
II in the Congo Free State. At last, and very 
recently this report has been absolutely con¬ 
firmed by a New York physician named Dr. 
Carr, who recently has returned from the 
Kassai River country. He reports that early 
in the year, acting under a special permit from 
the Belgian government, an American named 
J. R. Evans, shot two specimens of the water 
elephant, and which we now know is nothing 
more nor less than Eleplias pumilio, the pygmy 
elephant. The locality in which the specimens 
were found may be described as the vicinity of 
Lake Leopold II, in the western portion of the 
Congo Free State, and which is about 140 miles 
northeast of the confluence of the Kassai River 
and the Congo. 
The skin of one of these specimens was pre¬ 
sented by Mr. Evans to Lord Walter Roth¬ 
schild, proprietor of the Tring Museum, Eng¬ 
land, and the specimen already has been 
mounted and placed on exhibition. With ad¬ 
mirable promptness on the part of Rowland 
Ward, Ltd., an illustration of this mounted 
[3] 
