KUNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND 48. N:o0 5, 147 
I have now tried to show that the development of the pattern of the Giraffes 
as it has reached its present maximum in the reliculata-type is analogous with other 
phenomena among the Ruminants, if it is only assumed that the original pattern was 
spotted. 
Nothing is known, of course, about the colour or pattern of the ancestors of 
the Giraffes, but it does not appear at all improbable that they might have had the 
pigment more or less concentrated round certain centres on an otherwise somewhat 
paler ground colour. It is not needed to assume that these ancestral types should 
have had a sharply defined spotted pattern. It is quite sufficient if they from the 
beginning had had such rosettes of accumulated pigment as for instance often are 
seen in red domestic cattle in Sweden as well of native as of Ayreshire breeds. This 
is mentioned only as an analogy, but also because such a pattern appears to the 
present writer as a probable starting point in the development from a comparatively 
more or less uniform to a spotted coat. A concentration of the pigment at and 
around these centres would probably result in a blotched pattern. 
It is, of course, also possible that the first blotched pattern was developed as 
the result of broken up longitudinal stripes which may have been present in the 
early ancestors of the Giraffes, and of which the stripes on the hind quarters and 
legs of the Okapi may be the only remnants saved up to the present date. The 
occurrence of longitudinal stripes in the first coat of the young Ungulata belonging 
to several widely distant groups (f. i Tapirs, Pigs, Deer etc.) appears to indicate that 
this was the primitive pattern of the ancestral Ungulata. 
The specimen of G. c. reticulata which I shot on the northern side of Guaso 
Nyiri below Chanler Falls was a splendid old bull with worn teeth and probably at 
the height of its development. As can be seen from the photos of the skull (PI. 
XIII fig. 1) the azygous frontal horn is strongly developed. It rises from a broad 
conical base and continues in a thick cylindrical portion which is rounded and trun- 
eate at the end like the main pair of horns. The basal portion of the azygous horn 
is studded with small exostoses in front and on both sides but those of the right 
side are larger (PI. XIII, fig. 2). In front of this horn on the posterior portion of 
the nasals is a somewhat bigger boss, which lies entirely on the right side of the 
mesial line (Pl. XIII fig. 2). This skull is, however, by far not so dextral in its 
development as that of a bull of G. c. tippelskirchi Marscuie from Kilimanjaro 
described by the present author at another opportunity.‘ The right of the main 
pair of horns is basally a little thicker than the left, and the thickened basal portion 
extends forwards nearer to the orbit than on the left side (PI. XIII fig. 2). The 
roof of the right orbit is provided with a small boss but is otherwise hardly thicker 
than that of the left. The posterior or occipital pair of horns are not so typically 
developed as in old males of the Baringo Giraffe, but there is an osseous thickening 
on either side, and that of the right is the stouter, and it extends about 5 mm. 
further laterally than the left. It is thus evident that this race is »right-headed>, 
1 »Mammals» (p. 35—37) in Syécren’s Wiss. Ergeb. Kilimandjaro Meru Exped. 
