302 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



any functional value as weapons on account of their soft, 

 skin-covered points, which show no wear. The adult giraffe 

 horn is homologous to that of a deer horn in the "velvet," as 

 it is composed of a bony core covered by soft, hair-bearing 

 skin. The horns in the female are either lacking or much 

 reduced in many of the genera. Some of the extinct genera, 

 however, appear to have had harder and more sharply pointed 

 horns of more formidable appearance than those of giraffes 

 and okapis. The limbs show no trace of lateral toes or false 

 hoofs, nor do they show hoof glands like most of the other 

 ruminant families. The skull, beyond its horn structure, 

 shows no other marked peculiarity, nor do the teeth show 

 any substantial difference from those of deer with the ex- 

 ception of the broad, two-lobed character of the lower outer 

 incisor or canine tooth. The family formerly had a much 

 wider range than at present, and ranged throughout Asia and 

 Europe from the Miocene on down to the Pleistocene age, 

 reaching its maximum development in numbers in the 

 Pliocene of Asia. To-day it occurs only in Africa, where 

 it is represented by two genera — the well-known giraffe of 

 the drier and more arid parts of the continent and the 

 seclusive okapi of the Congo forests. 



Giraffe 



Giraffa 



Girafa Brisson, 1762, Reg. Anim., p. 60; type G. camelopardalis. 



The word giraffe at once recalls to mind the picture of a 

 large animal having an immense length of neck, tall, straight 

 legs, a short body, small head, and blotched coloration. This 

 grotesque animal stands as the extreme of his family in neck 

 development and height of body, and, perversely enough. 



