152 



THE ANTELOPES 



which are covered with flesh and hair. The giraffe, while 

 a familiar animal, often seen in menageries, is one of the 

 most remarkable and wonderful of all living animals. It 

 is literally a huge antelopelike creature with a neck 

 stretched out of all seeming proportion 

 (Fig. 129), that it may browse upon the 

 leaves of trees. The bones in the neck, 

 however, do not number more than in other 

 ruminants, each vertebra being lengthened 

 out. So long is this singular neck that the 

 giraffe can feed upon foliage nineteen feet 

 from the ground. The tongue, being 

 nearly seventeen inches in length, 

 materially increases the reach 

 ing power of the animal. The 

 back of the giraffe slopes 

 rapidly down from the 

 neck and gives the im- 

 pression that the fore 

 legs are the longest ; 

 but all are equal. 



Tall and clumsy as 

 is the giraffe, it is a 

 diflficult animal to cap- 

 ture and succeeds in at- ^^^^- 129. — the giraffe. 

 taining a high rate of speed. The Africans follow it on 

 foot or horseback, and hamstring it with swords, or shoot 

 it down, its skin being highly valued. So tall is the giraffe, 

 and so remarkable its color, that when feeding among lofty 

 trees it is often lost to sight, resembhng a tree itself and 

 escaping by what is termed a protective resemblance. 



