PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 317 



paper on the powers which move the blood in the veins. The subject was of too 

 professional a nature to justify more than a brief notice in this place. It may be 

 stated, however, that the main drift of the reader, in his examination of a great 

 number of theories, was to prove, contrary to the opinion of several eminent 

 physiologists, Dr. Arnott in particular, that the motion of the blood through the 

 veins is not due to the impulse of the heart, which impels sanguineous fluid 

 through the arteries, but rather to the contractibility of the capillaries — that 

 immense system of minute vessels, which lie between the aorta, by which the 

 arterial blood goes from the heart, and the vena cava, by which it is returned from 

 the veins. A highly interesting conversation followed the reading of Dr. Hol- 

 land's paper. — Sheffield Iris, April 10, 1838. 



OXFORD ASHMOLEAN SOCIETY. 



March 20. — Dr. Buckland in the chair. — Mr. Holme, of C.C.C., read a paper 

 on the early accounts of the Natural History of the Giraffe. A representation of 

 this animal occurs amongst the monuments of Thebes, where the chiefs of four 

 nations bring tributes to the Egyptian king, Thothmes III., who is supposed to 

 be the Pharaoh in whose reign the Israelites quitted Egypt. It seems doubtful, 

 however, whether the animal was known to the Israelites. It was certainly 

 unknown to Aristotle. Timjeus (b.c. 2G0), the historian of Sicily, as quoted 

 by Kazarine, the Arabian, was evidently acquainted with it. Agatharidos 

 (b.c. 180) mentions its name as originating from its combining the spots of the 

 Panther with the size of the Camel, and states that its neck was sufficiently long 

 to enable it to feed upon trees. From this time till the reign of Julius Cesar 

 no mention of this animal eccurs. Pliny says that the earliest specimens seen 

 in Europe were exhibited by that emperor ; from which fact it may be inferred 

 that the animal was not at that time found in the regions of Africa north of the 

 Zahara. Henceforward, the Giraffe was not unfrequently exhibited in Rome- 

 Strabo gives a detailed account of it, which is the more valuable, as from his 

 extensive travels in Upper Egypt it is probable that he had seen the animal in 

 its native state. Horace and Pausanias allude to it. Pliny's account is 

 remarkably meagre. The name of Nobis, by which he says it was known 

 amongst the /Ethiopians, corresponds exactly with the Hottentot term Naip. 

 It is curious that he should have taken no notice of its horns. Oppian, who had 

 probably seen some of the specimens brought over by the Gordians in the third 

 century, gives an accurate description of it in the third book of his Cynegetica. 

 After the removal of the seat of empire to Constantinople, the Giraffe was but 

 rarely seen in Europe. After Heliodorus, no author, for several centuries, 

 notices it, as the Arabian conquest of Egypt had probably cut off all com- 



vol. m. — no. xxi. 2 u 



