London, Dec. 30.—Although the sea serpent and his tribe are distinctly out of season at this time of the year, a “Rhodesian dinossaur” [Zimbabwe] has this week made his bow to the public. Herr Carl Hagenbeck, the zoologist, acted as his advance agent in his recent book, “Beasts and Men.” Herein Herr Hagenbeck mentions reports made to him of an immense and wholly unknown animal said to inhabit the interior of Rhodesia. He quotes native stories of a “huge monster, half elephant, half dragon,” dwelling in the depths of the great swamps, and suggests that it may be some kind of a dinosaur seemingly akin to the brontesaurus.
    Scientists in South Africa received the news coldly. The zoologists of the Rhodesia museus treated the reports with derision, declaring that nothing of the alleged dinosaur could be gathered from natives. This was on November 29.
    On December 14 the dinosaur reasserted himself in the columns of the Bulawayo Chronicle. A correspondent of that paper declares that he has investigated the matter himself and has met two natives who affirm in the most positive manner that they have actually seen the dinosaur. Neither of these natives knew the other, and both were shown separately a number of sketches some wholly imaginary and others constructed from illustrations of prehistoric reptiles.
    Both natives immediately picked the same sketch as closely resembling the monster they had seen. Each, however, called the attention of the sketcher to the omission in his picture of what from their description would appear to he something in the nature of propulsory flippers.
    The creature is supposed to inhabit a lake between the rivers Lunga and Kafce. Judging from the description given by the two natives to the Bulawayo Chronicle’s correspondent, it would seem to possess the head and tail of a crocodile, the horns of a rhinoceros, the neck of a pythen, and the body of a hippopotamus with, of course, the addition or propulsory flippers. Thus one specimen would in itself form a very fair mixed bag of big game, and when he was finished with Uganda Col. Roosevelt might well turn his attention to it.

From— The Daily Gate City. (Keokuk, Iowa), 30 Dec. 1909. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.