THE NORTHERN GIRAFFE 



Owing to the closure of the Soudan by the 

 Mahdists, and the unsettled political conditions 

 arising therefrom, the death of the last of the 

 old stock caused a long hiatus (1892-1902) to 

 intervene before the northern giraffe was again 

 exhibited in the London Zoo. A pair of young 

 animals presented by Col. Mahon, and obtained 

 singularly enough from the same province 

 Kordofan -as the giraffes of 1836, arrived in 

 London in the summer of 1902 and are still (1904) 

 flourishing in the Regent's Park menagerie. 



The northern giraffe has frequently been ex- 

 hibited in the various zoological gardens of the 

 Continent : a fine pair of adult animals were living 

 at Berlin in 1899, and the Jardin d'Acclimation at 

 Paris long possessed a herd of Abyssinian giraffes 

 which bred repeatedly in the garden, the last 

 survivor an old bull dying in June, 1902. The 

 Antwerp series included eight Belgian-born giraffes, 

 born during 1871-78: the last of these still 

 survives, and bears her twenty-three summers 

 with the elasticity of youth. 



It will thus be seen from the foregoing account 

 that the northern giraffe under common-sense 

 treatment does well enough in captivity, living to 

 a considerable age, and even breeding with 

 regularity, so that it seems probable that were it 

 not for the enormous cost of the animals (joo or 

 ^800 apiece) they might be systematically bred in 



