The “Devil-Pig”

Is It a Myth?

From Our Own Correspondent.

Port Moresby, May 24.

IF it is correct, as was published recently in the Victorian newspapers, that the Dyott expedition hopes to obtain evidence of the existence of the “devil-pig” near the Sepik River, New Guinea, it seems that they are doomed to disappointment.

The fantastic creature has been reported occurring only at the 11,000 ft. summit of Mt. Albert Edward, which is in Papua, not New Guinea.

Its existence was related to Mr. C. A. W.

Monckton, when a Resident Magistrate in Papua in 1906, by a native constable who was temporarily lost on the mountain side while looking for game. The native’s sense of proportion was deranged by his superstitious fear of strange country, by the cold, and by the fact that he was lost.

The fable of the “devil-pig” survived on that slender evidence alone, until the myth was exploded by the Archbold expedition sent to Papua by the American Natural History Museum of New York in February last year. Mr. R. Archbold and party spent three months near the summit of the mountains and did not find any foundation whatever for the tale.

The American scientists attributed the story of the “devil-pig” to the presence on Mount Albert Edward of wild dogs in great numbers. They deduced that the native constable, his imagination already inflamed, saw a wild dog in silhouette on the sky-line, a position which, particularly at high altitudes, has a magnifying effect.

Rev. C. W. Light, Anglican missionary at Boianai, Papua, arrived in Sydney by the Montoro on May 18. Accompanied by his wife, he left shortly afterwards for England.