618 REPORT OF THE HARVARD AFRICAN EXPEDITION 
elephant whose tracks he often saw. It occasionally swam the river to either 
bank to feed in the forest. Two years previous to his visit an elephant was shot 
at Kisikoro close to Robertport, while he himself saw tracks on the Du. While 
we did not see this species in Liberia alive we came upon tracks in the forest 
beyond Kolobanu, where a small herd had crossed our path, breaking a way 
through the undergrowth as it went. There was the track of a small one in the 
mud. Tracks were found again near the Du, but we were unable to come up 
with the animals. 
While we were at Paiata, word came of the killing of an elephant a few 
hours’ march away. Two of us accompanied a group of natives to the spot 
and found the body had been dismembered, and all the meat smoked or carried 
away, so that nothing remained but the cranium and pelvis, while the ground 
thereabouts was already a seething mass of fly maggots. The ear of the elephant 
had been cut off and lay entire near the hunters’ temporary camp so that we 
were able to measure and photograph it. The greatest vertical diameter was 
900 mm., the greatest width at the upper border of the meatus 790. It was 
apparently from a medium-sized cow, without tusks. Unfortunately we had no 
means of bringing out the skull. Other portions of skulls and Jaws seen here and 
there at villages did not seem especially small (Nos. 452, 453). 
Because of the interest attaching to the status of a supposed pygmy race 
of elephant, described from the Congo, and on account of the fact that 
W. D. M. Bell in his ‘‘ Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter”’ (1923) says defi- 
nitely that there are two sorts of elephants in Liberia, a smaller red and a 
larger blue variety that he himself hunted, we made special inquiries on the 
subject, but failed to secure any satisfactory evidence of a pygmy species. Na- 
tive hunters told us that they recognized three different kinds but these prob- 
ably are groups of different ages or individuals differing in the development of 
their tusks. The three are: (1) tall rangy animals with long thin tusks; (2) large 
broad-backed individuals with short, thick tusks; and (8) small elephants that 
“never”? become more than six or seven feet high and with very small ivory, 
not exceeding fourteen pounds. We saw a few tusks that had been bought 
of natives, and these were small, the largest barely two feet long, thick and 
stubby, but weighing perhaps not over fifteen pounds. According to native re- 
port the first sort go in herds of only two or three together, or there may be one 
or two old bulls. The second kind is usually found singly or with small ones and 
prefers marshy country; while the third may be in troops of five or six to ten, 
usually more cows than bulls. One such herd we followed, had been passing near 
the Du River, and left many tracks, most of which were from 6.5 to 10 inches 
in diameter, with one larger series of tracks 18 inches across at a little distance 
from the others. The natives are keen observers but frequently misinterpret 
what they see. In the case of the Liberian elephants, the truth probably is that 
for centuries the local herds have kept more or less to the shelter of this great 
forested area, and gradually the larger animals have been killed for their ivory, 
so that the smaller ones now outnumber the larger, giving rise to the belief that 
the latter are a different kind. The native method of hunting them is with the 
