THE NORTHERN GIRAFFE 1 09 



indeed, bulls over sixteen years present a remark- 

 able appearance, the interspaces forming a creamy 

 network recalling that found all over the Somali 

 giraffe : adult cows, however, even of greater age, 

 may show only faint traces of this network. A 

 remarkable pair of bony protuberances develop 

 in the supraoccipital region of adult bulls, and are 

 easily recognisable during life, projecting under the 

 skin : in the Uganda giraffes these protuberances 

 develop into horns as already stated. Both sexes 

 of the northern giraffe have a variable amount 

 of curly hair situated between the base of 

 the paired horns and the muzzle. Some individuals 

 (as in an eighteen-month old cow at Antwerp) 

 have the ends of the paired horns ornamented 

 with long, backwardly-directed tufts of drooping 

 hair. In extreme old age twenty-seven years 

 the legs become bowed. Wild-caught giraffes are 

 often darker than European-bred animals. 1 



The anatomy of the northern giraffe has been 

 repeatedly investigated, and will only be lightly 

 touched on here. This animal is remarkable in 

 occasionally possessing a gall-bladder : as a rule 

 this organ is absent, but Sir Richard Owen found 

 one with a bifid fundus in a northern giraffe which 



i The most beautiful giraffe which I have ever seen is the young 

 eighteen-month old bull, recently added to the collection of the Jardin 

 d'Acclimatation, Paris. The ground colour of this animal is pure 

 creamy white : compared with this fourfooted Adonis the young bull 

 now in London (ground colour suffused with fawn) is a very inferior 

 specimen. 



