Nov. 23, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
G 63 
OUR PYGMY HIPPOPOTAMI. 
Despite all the exploring to and fro in Africa, 
and all the slaughter of big game that for a 
century has furiously proceeded, the dark conti¬ 
nent has not yet given up all her wild animal 
secrets. The wonderful pygmy African elephant 
(Elephas pumilio ) stole into the world very 
quietly in 1905, but in 1889 the far more won¬ 
derful okapi burst upon the scientific world like 
a meteor. Since that astounding animal, the zo¬ 
ologists have been in a 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 al¬ 
most 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 inter¬ 
ested in the ungulates, says William T. Hornaday 
in the Zoological Society Bulletin, the pygmy 
hippopotamus 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 1844 by Dr. Samuel G. 
Morton, of the Philadelphia Academy of Science, 
but with the publication of his papers, the dif¬ 
fusion 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 litera¬ 
ture, except a very interesting chapter in Mr. 
Graham Renshaw’s book, “Natural History 
Essays.” 
The best way in the world to secure zoo¬ 
logical varieties from the remote corners of the 
earth is by taking pains to provide funds with 
which to purchase the animals that bold and ven¬ 
turesome 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 collections, without becoming a dealer in 
wild animals—an impossible undertaking. 
Eighteen months ago, Carl Idagenbeck, ever 
ready to try the untried, and attempt the impos¬ 
sible, dispatched to Liberia, west coast of Africa, 
an intrepid hunter and explorer named Hans 
Schomburgk. His mission was to find and se¬ 
cure alive several specimens of the almost mythi¬ 
cal pygmy hippo. The region which finally had 
to be penetrated was found to be reeking with 
cannibals, for whose diversion an imposing com¬ 
pany of native soldiers had to be enlisted. Mr. 
Hagenbeck pithily declared that “My traveler 
objects to being eaten.” 
The travels, experiences and hardships of 
Hans Schomburgk remain to be related, for the 
trophies have traveled faster than their history. 
At the present moment the public will be most 
concerned in the fact that .the New York Zoo¬ 
logical Society has secured the best portion of 
Herr Schomburgk’s catch—a living pair of 
pygmy hippopotami! 
The adult male in the case is thirty inches 
high at the shoulders, seventy inches in length 
from end of nose to base of tail, and the tail 
itself is twelve inches long. The weight of this 
animal is 419 pounds, and all these figures are 
offered subject to correction. 
The female is believed to he only two years 
old. It stands eighteen inches high at the shoul¬ 
ders and weighs 176 pounds. 
The pygmy hippo is characterized first of 
all by its mids'et size, which in the adult animal 
is about equal to that of a twelve-months-old 
baby hippo of the large species. Its skull is 
more convex or rounded on its upper surface 
than that of H. amphibius; its legs are longer 
and more slender in proportion, and its eyes do 
not “pop” out of its head like those of the giant 
species. Another striking character is the long 
tail, which in proportion is about twice as long 
as that of its only living relative, amphibius. 
The face of the pygmy is relatively smaller 
than that of the large species, which brings the 
eyes nearer to the median line of the skull. The 
lower jaw of the pygmy bears only two incisor 
teeth, while the large species has four, and while 
the orbits of liberiensis are large, they are pro¬ 
portionately less elevated than those of the large 
hippo. As the latter swims nearly submerged, 
the eyes seem to float on the surface of the water 
like two shiny glass marbles. 
The color of the pygmy is recorded as “slaty 
black” On the back, ‘ sides greenish slaty gray, 
and under parts grayish white.” Pending the 
arrival of our specimens we quote this remark¬ 
able color scheme with all reserve, and subject 
to amendment. 
We await with keen interest Hans Schom¬ 
burgk’s account of the habits and life history 
in general of this rare and strange animal. We 
have been informed, however, that it makes its 
home in swamps and wet forests, often at a 
distance of several miles from the nearest river 
or lake, and that it is not at all dependent upon 
large bodies of water, as its colossal relative 
always seems to be. We may confidently expect 
to hear that it subsists on fleshy and tender 
plants and reeds, and grass that is not too coarse 
and tough to be masticated by small jaws. 
Regarding the habitat of this animal, we 
can at present only describe it as the interior 
of the Republic of Liberia and regions adjacent, 
a designation not quite so vague as it seems, be¬ 
cause Liberia as a whole is not large. We 
imagine that Iderr Schomburgk penetrated about 
200 miles into the interior from the coast, but 
the awful character of that region would make 
this equal in difficulty and hardships encountered 
to about 500 miles in East Africa. Heretofore it 
has been known that the species inhabits the 
Little Searcies River, St. Paul’s River, Du Queah 
River and Fishermen Lake. 
The pygmy hippopotamus is, beside its only 
living relative, a midget, no more. Caliph, the 
enormous male hippo, who now stands in a 
mounted state in the American Museum of Natu¬ 
ral History, stood four feet nine and one-half 
inches in shoulder height, twelve feet and four 
inches in length from end of nose to root of 
tail, his circumference was eleven feet and eight 
inches, and his weight has been given as close 
to 6,500 pounds. Besides the enormous bulk of 
a full grown male hippo of the common species, 
it is like a six-months-old human infant of thir¬ 
teen pounds weight beside a man of 180 pounds. 
The disparity in size fairly challenges the imagi¬ 
nation. In bulk one adult male Nile hippo weigh¬ 
ing 6,000 pounds is equal to fourteen adult male 
pygmy hippos. Strange to say, notwithstanding 
the fact that many big hippos have died in the 
Zoological Gardens during the last hundred 
years, we cannot learn that thus far anyone ever 
has had the enterprise to ascertain the weight 
of a full grown male by actually weighing its 
remains. When our Peter the Great passes 
from earth, he will be weighed. 
Lip to this time, so Mr. Renshaw informs us, 
only one living specimen of the pygmy hippo 
ever has been sent from Africa to Europe. That 
was in 1873, when one was sent to the Dublin 
Zoological Gardens, arriving at that institution 
in a dying condition, and lived there only “about 
five minutes.” Not a single living specimen ever 
has been exhibited prior to the arrival of our 
specimens at Hamburg on June 15, 1912. 
The museum of the Philadelphia Academy of 
Science contains the only series of museum speci¬ 
mens of the pygmy hippo now in America, em¬ 
bracing a mounted skin, a mounted skeleton, two 
skulls and an unmounted skeleton. The Leyden 
Museum (Holland) is the only other which can 
be' said to possess a series of specimens. • There 
is one mounted skin in the London Museum and 
another in the Paris. This, with the mounted 
skin of the Dublin calf, in the Dublin Museum, 
completes the list of Museum specimens now ex¬ 
tant of an important species that was discovered 
and described sixtv-eight years ago. 
Our unique oair of living pygmy hippos will 
be exhibited in the elephant house. For their ac¬ 
commodation a small additional bathing tank, 
communicating with their apartment, will be con¬ 
structed immediately. The cost of the pair was 
$12,000, and as zoological rarieties they are well 
worth their cost. 
ON THE TRAIL OF THE PYGMY LIIPPO. 
“Come to see me at once,” was the telegram 
I received from Carl Hagenbeck, when I had let 
him know that my projected trip tnrough the 
French Congo had been abandoned. I hurried 
to Llamburg to meet our grand old man of Stell- 
ingen, who greeted me with these words: "Will 
you go for me out to West Africa to try and 
capture an animal that has never been brought 
to Europe alive, and help me to preserve a dying 
species of the African fauna?” 
“Why, certainly,” was my reply; "have I not 
just equipped an expedition to go to the western 
coast?” 
But when he then told me in confidence, says 
Hans Schomburgk in the Zoological Society Bul¬ 
letin, that I was to go to Liberia, capture and 
bring back alive specimens of the pygmy hippo¬ 
potamus, I must confess that 1 hesitated. Here 
I was asked to catch alive an animal which had 
not even yet been shot by a European hunter. 
Prof. Buttikofer, the great authority on Liberia, 
had tried for years to secure a specimen, and 
after all he had to be content with the skins and 
skeletons of three animals that had been shot by 
native hunters without himself even having seen 
a live animal. 
During my twelve years of African travel 
my motto had been, “Nothing is impossible.” I 
had explored the Wa Lunda country on the water 
shed of the Congo and Zambesi, without an 
armed escort, in the face of the evil prophecies 
of old hands who took leave of us for good 
when we started on our trip. I had succeeded 
in bringing home alive the first East African 
elephant, an undertaking that had been tried by 
many a well-known hunter without success. 
“Yes,” I said, “I will go.” 
Six weks after this conversation I landed 
in Monrovia, the capital of the Republic of 
Libe ria. Here I was greeted from all sides with 
the assurance that no such animal as the pygmy 
hippo existed, but only the big hippo. 
Having read in Buttikofer’s book that he 
had obtained a specimen of the pygmy hippo on 
the Duquea River, I decided to give this river 
the first trial. Unfortunately I arrived just in 
the beginning of the rainy season. With the 
greatest difficulty I managed to collect twelve 
carriers, who on the promise of extra high wages, 
agreed to follow me. 
In this lot I must have found the human 
sweepings of the streets of Monrovia. LIow 
they humbugged me! They evidently thought I 
was powerless to do anything, and I knew only 
too well that they would desert on the slightest 
pretext. 
In Sheffeliensville I got the first news of 
pygmy hippos. Mr. Lett, an American mulatto, 
who had been a hunter with the Buttikofer expe¬ 
dition, gave me the assurance that the pygmy 
hippo existed on the upper part of the Duquea 
River, while his big cousin, the “kibolco” of East 
Africa, only frequented the rivers near the coast. 
I hired six canoes in Sheffelien to bring me up 
to Jehtown, six days up the Duquea River. 
Rain was the order of the day. In pouring 
rain we started every morning, and pulled all 
day long against the current of the swollen river. 
The second day out I thought the time had come 
to teach my carriers a lesson. We were so far 
from civilization already that I no longer feared 
desertion. 
When I called the boys in the morning to 
start, nobody came, so I called up my headman, 
and asked him very quietly if the boys were pack¬ 
ing up. 
“No,” was. the reply, “they do not want to 
start yet.” 
Without saying another word T took up my 
Browning automatic revolver, and put seven shots 
through the roof of the boys’ hut. Then they 
came quickly. From that moment I took the 
reins, and after I had picked out the biggest 
and laziest of the motley crowd, and had given 
him a good hiding, I had no further trouble. 
