GlKAFFES, AND HOW TO CAPTURE THEM 187 



is thus momentarily closed at will and protected from 

 the spiny terrors of the Acacia giraffm and Acacia 

 horrida, from which the animal mainly takes its food. 

 Similarly the upper lip, which projects far below the 

 nostril, as may be seen at the Natural History Museum, 

 is thick, tough, and impervious, and furnished in ad- 

 dition with a dense, short, velvety coating of hair. The 

 tongue is remarkable for its great length (eighteen 

 to twenty inches) and singular flexibility; indeed, 

 the giraffe's tongue plays for its owner, in the procur- 

 ing of food and the prehension and tearing down of 

 succulent leafage, exactly the part of the elephant's 

 trunk. The tongue is capital eating, as indeed is 

 the flesh of the whole animal, when young or just 

 mature. A fat cow is considered the greatest deli- 

 cacy. The meat is equal to extremely good veal, 

 with a game-like flavour of its own. But the tit-bit 

 of the giraffe — and a very large tit-bit it is, often 

 as much as three feet in length — is the marrow 

 bone, the greatest luxury of its kind in the world. 

 Well roasted over the camp fire, and then sawn in 

 half, the immense bone furnishes the most luscious 

 of marrow, far surpassing in richness and delicacy 

 our beef marrow-bones at home. My hunting com- 

 panion upon a recent expedition became so much 

 enamoured of this honne-houche, that he fashioned for 

 our use two long wooden spoons, each about two feet 

 in length, the better to extract the toothsome dainty. 



