128 NATURE AND SPORT IN SOUTH AFRICA 



time of the decease of the last "Zoo" giraffe that 

 only one example — an old male — was procurable from 

 the varied stocks of all the wild beast dealers in 

 Europe. Fortunately for all lovers of animal life, a 

 young female giraffe, captured by Boer hunters in 

 South-East Africa, was, after much difficulty, safely 

 landed in England in February 1895. The Zoological 

 Society managed to secure this rare specimen — no 

 South African giraffe having been previously landed 

 in Europe — and the captive is now thriving excel- 

 lently well in the Regent's Park Gardens.^ 



There are several reasons which combine to ac- 

 count for this singular dearth of giraffes. Before 

 entering upon them, however, it may not be un- 

 profitable to trace very briefly the history of captive 

 giraffes in Europe. And primarily one must go back 

 to the days of Imperial Rome, when first the tall 

 giraffe was brought from Northern Africa — from the 

 far Libyan Desert — to grace the triumphs and the 

 arena of various emperors. First said by Pliny to 

 have been shown to the Romans in the dictatorship 

 of Julius Ca3sar, giraffes were undoubtedly exhibited 

 by several emperors. Gordian II is said to have 

 possessed ten at one time, while Aurelian displayed 



1 While these pages are in the press, I learn that this female 

 is to be shortly joined by a young male giraffe, the property 

 of the Queen. This animal, captured in the Northern Kalahari, 

 is a Jubilee present to her Majesty from Bathoen, a well-known 

 chief in the Bechuanaland Protectorate. 



