and Muscles of the Giraffe, 



179 



detected that this was not the case. Although in very aged 

 animals they are pretty firmly soldered to the cranium, still in 

 younger specimens their junction by a tough base is looser, so 

 that, on maceration, they drop off. This led to their being- 

 acknowledged as bony epiphyses, not apophyses of flie cranium ; 

 and, moreover, their situation or implantation over the coronal 

 suture excluded them virtually from the cervine, bovine, and 

 and antilopine category. The best sectional views that I 

 know of, showing the constitution of these appendages and 

 their relation to the skull itself, are those of Owen* in an ani- 

 mal nine days old, and of Joly and Lavocatf .in the adult. 



Ficr. 2. 



A mesial longitudinal section of the same horn, its soft basal substance, 

 and portions of the frontal bone and brain : h, osseous substance of the 

 horn ; v, vascular channels penetrating the same ; fc, fibro-cartilaginous 

 matrix ; sk, the bony tables and diploe of the skull ; dm, dura mater ; 

 br, brain. 



So far the opinion of the majority tallies with the fact of the 

 giraffe's pair of rear horns being primarily epiphysial, ulti- 

 mately coalescing with the bone beneath, so tliat trace of 

 separate origin is with difficulty recognized. It rests with me 

 to place on record additional demonstrative evidence of the 

 early relation of these horns to the skull in an animal 

 two months old. The accompanying woodcuts (figs. 1 & 2) 

 are quite as suggestive and more explanatory than long de- 



* Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. iii. p. 2C5, pi. 2. fig. 4. 

 t Op. cit. pi. 9. figs. 1 & 2. 



13* 



