AT THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY'S GARDENS. ■ 27 



ADDITIONAL NOTE. 



On the 12th of March, 1840, nearly nine months after the birth of the young Giraffe 

 described in the foregoing communication, the mother took the male three times. She 

 was then kept apart until the 2Gth of May, 1841, when, after a gestation of 431 days, 

 or 15 lunar months and 11 days, she brought forth a male. 



The advice which I had tendered after the former occasion was in this instance fol- 

 lowed. The manger of the pregnant female, when her time approached, was inclosed. 

 The parturition was observed by the keeper outside. The fore-legs first appeared, the 

 head and body followed : the mother stooped down behind to deposit her burthen safely 

 on the litter. The young animal received those attentions from the mother which, in 

 the previous case, had been afforded by her keepers. The natural relations were thus 

 commenced, and were established, about 12 hours after the birth, by the mother yielding 

 her udder to her offspring, which sucked strongly. 



The young Giraffe presented the same external characters and dimensions as his pre- 

 decessor. 



After three weeks he began to take vegetable food ; and when four months old, fed 

 chiefly upon it and ruminated regularly like the parent. Standing six feet high when 

 one week old, he attained the height of seven feet at the end of three months, and now, 

 when nearly nine months old, he reaches nine feet six inches, having grown three feet 

 six inches during that short period. 



Four weeks after birth the four middle incisors were conspicuous ; and the crowns 

 of the two anterior molars on each side of both jaws were extricated from the gum and 

 in use. At two months, the third incisor in each ramus of the lower jaw was acquired. 

 At four months the third and fourth molars were in place, and the external incisors 

 had cut the gum ; they are now risen to nearly their natural height and position. At 

 the present time the young Giraffe has acquired all his first or temporary teeth. 



The shedding of this series and the acquisition of the permanent dentition form a 

 much longer process. The parent Giraffe, for example, at the period of the birth of 

 her second fawn, was shedding her external bilobed milk-incisors, the successors to 

 which have not yet acquired their natural position in the series of permanent incisors. 



b2 



