Dwarfs Among Animals.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXI, Issue XVII, 24 October 1903, Page 61

Dwarfs Among Animals.

Pigmies are not confined to the human race, bu-t are found among the lower animals. One of the most remarkable of these dwarfs was a species of elephant which formerly lived on the island of Malta and in various parts of Italy, where its bones are now occasionally found. This creature, judging from the bones which have been collected, was about the size of a sheep, so we can imagine the baby pigmy, a perfect elephant not much larger than a cat, an animal readily held in the open palm of a man's hand. Dwarf elephants are not unknown today, and have sometimes been brought to England, where they seem to develop wonderful intelligence. Tire Shetland and other ponies are the pigmies among horses, and in the early days there was a horse hardly as large as a lox, if we may believe the evidence of the rocks which have preserved the remains of various fossil horses. A very beautiful species of pigmy deer is found on the Sunda Islands. These little creatures are not much bigger than a eat, while the young are beautiful little animals hardly the size of a small rabbit. yet perfect in shape and form. The ordinary musk deer of Central Asia is a pigmy in every sense of the word, and one of the most attractive of the tribe. To the naturalist it is an undeveloped creature. It is about three feet in length, twenty inches high at the shoulder, and has. in the male, largely developed canine teeth that project, so that they are very conspicuous, and are used as weapons in the contests which the little creatures wage one with another.