26 PROF. OWEN ON THE BIRTH OF THE GIRAFFE 



With respect to the anatomical peculiarities of the young Giraffe, I shall at present 

 merely notice the condition of the antlei's, teeth and larynx. Each of the small antlers 

 was supported by an obtuse process of very dense cartilage, about one inch in height and 

 ten lines across the base ; this was moveably connected with the pericranium. On 

 making a vertical section through the cartilaginous base of one of the antlers and the 

 adjacent surface of the cranium (as shown in Plate II. Fig. 4.), ossification was found 

 to have commenced by several small independent centres near the periphery of the 

 upper half of the cartilaginous tubercle (a, a). As the bony support of the antler of 

 the Giraffe continues, for a long period after its ossification is completed, a distinct 

 epiphysis of the cranium, its original development might have been expected to have 

 differed, as the present dissection has proved it to do, from the mode of growth of the 

 antlers of the Deer ; the cartilage was supported exclusively by the frontal bone close 

 to the coronal suture, over which its base is afterwards extended in the progress of 

 growth. 



With respect to the larynx, I found the epiglottis and arytsenoid cartilages relatively 

 longer than in the adult ; the whole larynx presenting a pyramidal form, with the 

 margins of the apex bent outwards and projecting above the soft palate into the poste- 

 rior aperture of the nasal passage ; the anterior part and sides of the apex of the larynx 

 were formed by the epiglottis, the posterior part by the retroverted tips of the arytae- 

 noid cartilages ; the whole being inclosed in a continuous duplicature of the mucous 

 and epithelial membranes of the larynx. A fold or ridge of the lining membrane is 

 continued from the lower margin of the soft palate to the back part of the pharynx ; a 

 fasciculus of fibres is continued from those of the soft palate with the middle constrictor 

 of the pharynx into this ridge, immediately below the expanded apex of the pharynx, 

 the use of which is obviously to grasp that part of the larynx, and to isolate it more 

 completely from the part of the pharynx which communicates with tlie mouth : this 

 modification of the constrictors of the pharynx and apex of the larynx with the tonsils 

 are shown in Plate II. Fig. 5. 



The state of the dentition when the young Giraffe died, nine days after its birth, was 

 as follows : in the lower jaw the crowns of the median incisors were almost entirely 

 protruded through the skin ; the edge of the adjoining incisor on each side had just 

 cut the gum ; the other incisors were still concealed. The apices of the first, second, 

 third, and the anterior pair of the fourth molars had pierced the gum on each side. In 

 the upper jaw the apices of the first, second, and the anterior pair of the third molars 

 had pierced the gum. All the teeth thus apparent in both jaws belonged of course to 

 the first or deciduous series. 



