IO6 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



her. 1 The Pasha sent a third giraffe to the Sultan, 

 and a fourth to Venice, at the same time. George 

 IV's specimen was the weakest of the four and 

 soon becoming unable to stand, died after a few 

 months in England. 



Finally, in 1836, four young camelopards, none 

 of them more than two years old, were safely 

 received at the London Zoological Gardens. 2 The 

 animals three males and a female flourished, 

 and became the founders of a long line of English- 

 bred giraffes, the first calf being born on June 9th, 

 1839 ; it was followed by five others, the old cow 

 eventually dying at the age of eighteen years. 

 The giraffes continued to breed : and between the 

 arrival of the original animals in 1836 and the 

 death of the last of the old stock in 1892, no less 

 than thirty camelopards were exhibited in the 

 Regent's Park menagerie, seventeen of which 

 had been born there. I well remember the last 

 two animals of this long series, which connected 

 the business-like era of to-day (in which almost 

 every part of Africa is being diligently exploited 

 by companies) with the long-vanished past, when 

 huge areas of the Dark Continent now colonised 

 were unknown regions, teeming with great game. 

 Eheu fugaces ! 



1 The famous Paris giraffe may now be seen stuffed in the Natural 

 History Museum of the Jardin des Plantes. 



2 A series of the milk teeth of these individuals is preserved in 

 the Royal College of Surgeons' Museum. 



