THE OKAPI OF CENTRAL AFRICA. ()65 



ihc ukapi, prefers relatively open country, dotted with the low acacia 

 trees on which it feeds. Towering up above these trees, the t»"iratl'e 

 with its large eyes can from 20 feet above the ground scan the sur- 

 rounding country and detect the approach of a troop of lions, the only 

 creature besides man which can do it any harm. Man, of course — the 

 British and Boer s])ortsmen well in advance of the others — is doing 

 his level best to exterminate the giraffe, as he has exterminated the 

 mammoth, the Ur ox. the quagga, the dodo, and the auk. But for 

 the presence of man, the giraffe might have been one of the lords of 

 the earth. The defenseless okapi, howev^er, only survived l)v slinking 

 into the densest parts of the Kongo forest, where the lion never pene- 

 trates, and where the leopard takes to a tree life and lives on monkeys. 

 The only human enemies of the okapi hitherto have been the Kongo 

 dwarfs and a few black negroes of the larger types who dwell on the 

 fringe of the Kongo forest. How much longer the okapi will survive 

 now that the natives possess guns and collectors are on the search for 

 this extraordinary animal, it is impossible to say. It is to be hoped 

 very earnesth' that 1)oth the British and Belgian Governments will 

 combine to save the okapi from extinction. 



The group of ruminants to which the Ocapm belongs includes at the 

 present day the giraffe and possibly the prongbuck of North America. 

 Far back in the historv of the Artiodactyla," when in a section of 

 them horns became the dominant characteristic, these appendages were 

 developed mainh^ in two different fashions. The deer tribe grew bony 

 appendages which started from knobs on the frontal bones, and these 

 appendages fell off' and were renewed eveiy twelve months. When 

 the horns of the stag fall, the}" leave only a bon}' knob, which rises 

 very little above the level of the skull. The Bovidae, or oxen-ante- 

 lope group, developed first long bony prominences which went on 

 growing j^ear hx year up to the age of full maturity. These bony 

 prominences came in time to be cased by horny coverings, and thus 

 we have the hollow-horned i-uminants; for when these horny coverings 

 are removed from the long bony socket they are found to be hollow; 

 thev are not solid bony antlers growing from the top of a horn core. 

 But midway Ijetween these two main groups there is a third, of which 

 the giraffe and the prongbuck are two divergent specimens. Here was 

 an intermediate stage between the deer and the oxen. Bony promi- 

 nences, like those of the Bovldse^ but not so long, grew out from the 

 skull and were covered with hair. From the top of these prominences 

 (as in the case of the prongbuck, the extinct Sivatherium, and probably 



" Most of the readers'^of McClure's Magazine are aware that the Artiodactyla are a 

 suborder of ungulates in which the middle toes are equally develoi)ed. This group 

 includes the hippopotamus, the pigs, camels, deer, giraffes, oxen, sheep, goats, and 

 antelopes. 



