THE GIRAFFE. J 



at others exceedingly rough. The lips possess great flexi- 

 bility, the upper one being longer than the lower, and rather 

 pointed at the end, and therefore adapted to assist the tongue 

 in drawing in boughs, but when grinding the food it is con- 

 tracted. 



As in all other ruminants, the front or incisive teeth are 

 wanting in the upper jaw. The giraffe lies down when it 

 chews the cud ; and with respect to this action, Sir Everard 

 Home observes that " it is curious to see the cud rise gra- 

 dually through the length of the oesophagus to the mouth. '* 

 This gradual motion might probably result from the weak 

 state of the animal he observed ; for in the healthy specimen 

 at Paris, it was still more wonderful to watch the rapidity 

 with which the cud traversed the long neck to reach the 

 mouth ; the eye could hardly follow it in its passage. 



It would seem, from the silence of the early describers of 

 the giraffe, that the horns were either occasionally deficient, 

 or, from their small size and peculiar covering, had been over- 

 looked. The latter is the more probable supposition, for in 

 none of the instances, in which this animal has come under 

 observation since the importance of careful scrutiny in Natu- 

 ral History has been duly appreciated, have the horns been 

 found wanting. In the female giraffe now living at the 

 Garden of Plants, they are seven inches in length, perfectly 

 conical for one half of their extent, whilst the other half, 

 which is cylindrical, is curved backwards, and ends ob- 

 tusely. Each horn is eleven inches in circumference at the 

 base, four inches in circumference at the middle, and the 

 same at the extremity. The skin of the head covers them 

 entirely, and the hair is of the same length there as on other 

 parts, except at the extremity of the horn, where the hairs 

 are longer, and hang off like a tuft or brush. 



In order to understand completely the nature of these 

 horns, it becomes necessary to consider those of ruminating 

 animals in general. The weapons with which these otherwise 

 defenceless animals are provided, are situated on the upper 

 part of the head, and are wielded with a vigour proportionate 

 to the vast muscular apparatus connected with that part. 

 They are of two kinds. In the ox, the sheep, the goat, and 

 the antelope, the horns are composed of a true elastic horny 

 sheath, encased upon a bony core, which is a production or 

 branch of the frontal bone of the skull. These two parts 

 grow together ; they are never shed. After death the outer 

 sheath separates, sooner or later, from its bony core; its 

 cavity early suggested its utility as a drinking-vessel, &c, — 

 and in Natural History all this class of horns are technically 



