238 MR. R. OWEN ON THE ANATOMY 
in length to the seventh: the dorsal vertebre thence grow narrower to the ninth, after 
which the vertebre increase in breadth chiefly by the progressive development of the 
transverse processes. The fourth dorsal spine is the longest ; the second is the strong- 
est. Their great development relates to the length of the neck, the head and its ap- 
pendages being, in consequence of that length, rendered remarkably light. The spines 
of the dorsal and lumbar vertebre all slightly incline backwards. 
The sacrum consists of four vertebre anchylosed together, but of these only the first 
is articulated with the lewm. I counted twenty vertebre in the tail of the Nubian 
Giraffe. ‘The vertebral formula in this species is therefore as follows: Cervical 7, 
Dorsal 14, Lumbar 5, Sacral 4, Caudal 20. In the greater development of the tail the 
Giraffe presents a marked deviation from the Deer, agreeing in this respect with the 
other Ruminants which have small and persistent horns. 
There are fourteen pairs of ribs, seven true and seven false. The first pair is straight, 
the rest become gradually more and more curved to the last. They increase in length 
to the eighth, and thence gradually become shorter: they increase in breadth to the 
fifth, and thence gradually become narrower. 
The sternum consists of a single series of six bones and an ensiform cartilage ; it is 
chiefly remarkable for its great curvature. The first sternal bone is the narrowest and 
longest ; the succeeding ones progressively diminish in length and increase in thickness. 
Little remains to be said of the bones of the extremities after the illustrations which 
have been given by Pander and D’Alton. The Giraffe presents, perhaps, the relatively 
longest and narrowest scapula of all Mammalia. The apparent superiority in the length 
of the anterior extremities depends upon the nearly vertical position of this bone upon 
the anterior part of the side of the deep and narrow chest. 
In the humerus the medullary artery enters the bone at its inner side, about the 
junction of the upper and middle third (in the skeleton of the Giraffe in the Museum 
of Comparative Anatomy at Paris the artery enters at the junction of the middle and 
lower third in the left humerus) ; the course of the canal is obliquely towards the distal 
extremity, as in almost all Mammalia’. 
The bones of the fore-arm, though anchylosed together, are well defined. The ulna 
forms the olecranon and the posterior third of the trochlea for the humerus ; it then sends 
down the posterior and outer side of the radius a slender splint-like process, which 
becomes confluent with the radius at its lower end, and disappears about two-thirds of 
the way down the bone. Three inches below this extremity the ulna again reappears, 
and swells out into a process which presents an articular surface which glides upon the 
concavity of the cuneiform bone. In the Parisian skeleton the ulna is continued without 
interruption from end to end. The medullary canal commences at the posterior side 
1 The only exception I haye as yet found is in the Tamandua, where the medullary canal of the humerus 
runs rather proximad. 
