THE NORTHERN GIRAFFE 103 



remembered that M. Geoffrey St. Hilaire as 

 long ago as 1827 pointed out that the northern 

 giraffe was distinct from the southern form. 



Recorded measurements seem to show that 

 G. camelopardalis is on the whole a taller animal 

 than G. capensis, though the height of both 

 species averages about eighteen to nineteen feet 

 in bulls, and sixteen to seventeen feet in cows. 

 The five-horned giraffe of Uganda may be taken 

 as the best developed type of the northern animal : 

 one of the examples shot in 1900 (now in the 

 National Collection) measured twenty feet in 

 height. Paterson's type specimen of the Southern 

 giraffe (shot in 1777-79) was according to Pennant 

 only fifteen feet high, hence probably immature. 

 The Somali and Western giraffes are as yet too 

 imperfectly known for us to estimate their average 

 stature. 



The Northern Giraffe has been so long known 

 to Europeans and its history is so interwoven 

 with the legends of antiquity, that a study of 

 its history and habits constitutes a most facinating 

 chapter of Zoology. Our knowledge of the animal 

 may be tabulated as follows : 



(a\ Classical period : The oldest known picture 

 of the animal is to be found on the tomb of Beni 

 Hassan in Egypt. The ancients were more or 

 less familiar with it, and it appears in many of 





