CHAPTER XI 



THE RETICULATED AND COMMON GIRAFFES 



Giraffes 



GirafidcB 



The living giraffes are so well separated by the char- 

 acter of their peculiar body shape and short, skin-covered 

 horns from the other hoofed mammals that they have raised 

 the family reputation for distinctness much beyond what 

 it is really entitled to. The extinct or fossil members are 

 less grotesque in shape and are less widely separated from 

 the deer or stags in bodily proportions and other characters. 

 One of the most remarkable of these was the gigantic Siva- 

 therium, a genus having large, forked horns, a short neck, and 

 general moose-like shape, but exceeding that animal greatly 

 in bulk. A much less specialized animal than the giraffe 

 is the recently discovered okapi, a forest-haunting, giraffe- 

 like mammal having a rather short neck and a pair of short, 

 giraffe-like horns. Notwithstanding the highly specialized 

 character of the neck and limbs of the modern giraffe, the 

 family is best characterized by its very primitive horn 

 structure. The horns are not outgrowths of the bones of 

 the skull, as in the deer and the antelopes, but they develop 

 independently and in adult age become fused with both the 

 frontal and parietal bones upon which they rest. They ex- 

 hibit the primitive condition of being encased permanently 

 by a covering of hair-bearing skin, and seem never to be of 



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