304 INVISIBILITY OF GIRAFFE CHAP. 



of Kuminants. The neck is often supposed to have some relation 

 to this method of feeding. But a more ingenious explanation of 

 its inordinate length is that it serves as a watch-tower. The 

 long grass of the districts inhabited by the animal swarms with 

 Lions and Leopards, which must be foes. The long neck allows 

 of a wide look out being kept, and it is noteworthy that the 

 Ostrich, living under similar conditions, is also renowned for its 

 length of neck. It is the spots upon the Giraffe which have 

 given it its name of Canieleopard ; these spots present in the 

 southern form a series of chocolate-coloured areas, sharply marked 

 off by white spaces. Of these spots it is asserted that they 

 serve as a means of concealing their possessor. Sir Samuel 

 Baker l wrote of it in the following words : " The red- barked 

 mimosa, which is its favourite food, seldom grows higher 

 than 14 or 15 feet. Many woods are almost entirely composed 

 of these trees, upon the flat heads of which the giraffe can 

 feed when looking downwards. I have frequently been mis- 

 taken when remarking some particular dead tree -stem at a 

 distance that appeared like a decayed relic of the forest, until 

 upon nearer approach I have been struck by the peculiar inclina- 

 tion of the trunk ; suddenly it has started into movement and 

 disappeared." 



The Giraffe, remarked Pliny, " is as quiet as a sheep." The 

 Eoman public, to whom the first Giraffe ever brought into Europe 

 was exhibited, expected from its name " to find in it a combina- 

 tion of the size of the camel and the ferocity of a panther." As 

 a matter of fact, Giraffes in captivity are not always sheep-like in 

 temper. They will kick with viciousness and vigour, and will 

 even initiate an attack upon their keeper. At the same time 

 they are singularly nervous creatures, and have been known to 

 die from a shock. In moving, the Giraffe uses the fore- and hind- 

 limb of each side simultaneously ; this gives to its gait a peculiar 

 rocking motion, the singularity of which is heightened by the 

 curving movements of the long neck, which even describes now 

 and then a figure of eight in the air. Gira/a camelopardalis 

 and the species (?) already referred to are the only existing 

 Giraffes (of the genus Giraffa), and they are not found out of 

 Africa. Sir Harry Johnston has lately given a brief account 

 of a larger and more brilliantly coloured species from Uganda 



1 Wild Beasts and their Ways, 1890, p. 151. 



