XXXITI 
MAMMALS OF LIBERIA 
By Guover M. ALLEN anp Haroup J. Coonipcs, JR. 
THE mammalian fauna of Liberia was practically unknown until Biittikofer and his 
associates, Sala and Stampfli, undertook its investigation in the years 1879-1882, 
and again in 1886-1887. Although they did not at any time go very far from 
the coast, the forest cover of the country is so nearly homogeneous that they were 
able to investigate the fauna of the coastal part sufficiently to give a very excel- 
lent idea of its mammalian life as a whole. On the basis of the specimens that 
they collected, Jentink described no less than twelve new forms, some of which 
are still regarded as valid, while others are synonyms of names previously 
applied to West Coast species; for a number of the species had already been 
named from specimens sent to England from Sierra Leone, or are identical with 
those ranging to the Gold Coast which were reviewed or described by Temminck 
in 1853, in his Esquisses Zoologiques sur la Cote de Guiné. This work was based 
largely on collections sent to Leyden by the Dutch naturalist, Pel, in the employ 
of a trading company with quarters on the Gold Coast, whose fauna is very much 
like that of the adjacent regions. Temminck described many of the mammals 
of this coast as new and his names in many cases are found to be available for the 
West Coast forms of species originally known from Fernando Po or from farther 
southeast on the mainland as in the Cameroon country; for the forest fauna of 
western Africa, from the Congo basin to the Cameroons, and extending north- 
westward in a narrow coastwise strip from the latter region to Sierra Leone, is 
more or less of a unit as contrasted with the plains fauna of the grasslands and 
thorn bush, inhabiting the remainder of the continent from French Guinea to 
East and South Africa, and thence up on the west coast to Angola. Neverthe- 
less, many forms of the coastal forest from Sierra Leone to Gold Coast are sub- 
specifically distinct from their representatives farther east, in the Cameroons 
and the Congo basin. The coastal strip of forest that they occupy is relatively 
narrow, and is practically interrupted near Lagos forming a nearly isolated faunal 
area. It is broadest over Liberia, which it includes practically entire, as shown in 
Sir Harry Johnston’s map (1906, vol. 2, p. 523). Examples of such species of 
wide distribution in the forest area, having representative forms in Liberia and 
the adjacent countries, are: — 
Crocidura occidentalis cara Heliosciurus rufobrachium maculatus 
Cercocebus torquatus atys Protoxerus stangeri temminckii 
Cercopithecus mona campbelli Myrsilus aubinii salae 
Cercopithecus nictitans biittikofert Euxerus erythropus maestus 
Colobus badius badius Cricetomys gambianus liberiae 
Colobus polykomos polykomos Mastomys coucha erythroleucus 
Anomalurus fraseri derbianus Praomys tullbergi rostratus 
Aethosciurus poensis musculinus Hybomys univittatus planifrons 
Funisciurus pyrrhopus leonis 
569 
