10IS 



GtnAFFA. 



GIRAFFA. 



1016 



thU root, which we 

 nrncanihlr part* of 

 d by danger* suffi- 

 >tamU believe the 



weight in gold has been given by the Chines 



are told grows only in the most remote i 



Chinese Tartary, where iU collection U at 



cient to appal the stoutest man. Neverthel 



Ginseng to be nothing more than a plant call 



aUo found in North America, where no such qualities as those spoken 



of by the Chinese are recognised. 



GIRAFFA (Camelopard of Pennant and authors), a genus of Rumi- 

 nants, with persistent horns common to both sexes, comprising the 

 tallest of the known quadrupeds. Dr. J. E. Gray makes this genus 

 the type of the tribe tiiraffina. Horns covered with a hairy skin, 

 with a tuft of hair at the tip. He gives the following synonyms : 



Camelopardina, Gray, ' Ann. Phil.' 1825 ; ' Cat Mamm. R M.' xxvi 



Camelopardalu, Cuv. ' Tab. Elem.' 1798. 



Giraffida, Gray, ' L. M. Rep.' xv. 807, 1821 ; H. Smith, Griffith, 



1 A. K.' v. ; J. Brookes, ' Cat Mus.' 63, 1828. 

 Derexa, Uliger, ' Prod.' 104, 1811. 

 Ptenieornio, b, Latr. ' Fam. Nat' 1821. 

 Caaulopardalidte, Selys Longchamps, 1842. 

 Elaphiens, part, ' Pomet' L c. 184. 



Xuminalia tlereoceria, part, 'Rafin. Anal. Nat* 56, 1815. 

 Ruminant la B. Pyynocerate, part, Bronn, ' Index Palaeont' ii. 709. 

 Cameli, ft Wagler, ' N. Syst Amph.' 431, 1830. 

 Cernda, part, Ogilby, 'P. Z. S.' 184, 1836. 

 ferrteormo, , Sundevall, ' Pecora,' 62. 

 I'nguligrada, part, Sundevall, ' Pecora,' 52. 

 Oaicornia, RUppell, 'Verz. Senck. SammL' 183, 1845. 

 Camelopardalina, Sundevall, ' Pecora,' 52. 

 Comelopardinea, Lesson, ' N. Tab. R. A.' 168, 1842. 

 Les Girafes, F. Cuvier, ' D. Sci. Nat' lix. 513. 



Giraffa has the following characters : Lip not grooved, entirely 

 covered with hair, much produced before the nostril ; tongue very 

 extensile ; neck very long ; body short ; hinder legs short ; false 

 hoof none ; tail elongate, with a tuft of thick hair at the end. 



G. Camelopardalit, the Giraffe or Camel-Leopard, is the only species. 

 It U the Cerfut Camelopardalit, Linn. ; C. Capentit, Geoff, Ogilby ; 

 Camelopardalit Gira/a, a, Sundevall; Giraffa Camelopardalit,'Briaaou; 

 Camelopardalit Girafa, Gmelin. 



There is a pale variety, which has the following synonyms : 

 Camelopardalit Girafa, ft. JEthiopica, Sundevall; Camelopardalit 

 Sennaarentu, Geoff. ; Camelopardalit sEthiopictis, Ogilby ; Camelo- 

 pardalit, Plin. ; Camelo-pardalut, Jonst ; Camelut Indicia, Joust. ; 

 Gyraffe, Belon; Tragut Giraffa, Klein; Camelopard, Penn. ; Kamel 

 paani, Vosmaer ; Giraffe Thevet, Buffon, Levaill., Shaw, Lichtenst. ; 

 Giraffe, or Cameleopard, Harris. 



The structure and history of this extraordinary animal have a high 

 interest for the naturalist We shall first speak of the anatomy of 

 its bones. 



The skeleton of a Giraffe arrests the attention of the observer at 

 once : the head lifted on high upon the extremely elongated neck, 

 the high withers, and the slender length of limb, taken together, con- 

 trast strangely with the bony fabrics of the other quadrupeds. A 

 man who looks up at such a skeleton for the first time, and without 

 previous knowledge of its structure, must be struck at finding that 

 the towering neck consists of exactly the same number of bones that 

 form his own. The skull is light and thin. The horns are considered 

 by Dr. Ruppell (who during his travels in Northern Africa obtained 

 in Nubia and Kordofan three specimens, two males and one female) 

 as constituting the principal generic character, they being formed by 

 distinct bones, united to the frontal and parietal bones by a very 

 obvious suture, and exhibiting throughout the same structure as the 

 other bones. In both sexes, he observes, one of these abnormal bones 

 is situated on each branch of the coronal suture, and the male possesses 

 an additional one, placed more anteriorly, and occupying the middle 

 of the frontal suture. The existence of this third appendage is con- 

 sidered to furnish a complete refutation of Camper's theory with regard 

 to the unicorn, namely, that such an occurrence is contrary to nature, 

 and to prove at least the possibility of the existence of such an animal. 

 This appendage is conspicuous in the plate containing the crania 

 (' Atlas zu der Reise im Nordlichen Afrika,' von Eduard RUppell ; 

 pL 9, fig. a, a) ; and, as it ii there represented, rises abruptly from 

 the <M frontis with all the appearance of a third horn. Cuvier, in his 

 last edition of the ' Regne Animal ' (1829), follows Dr. RUppell ; and, 

 speaking of the horns, says their bony core (noyau osseux) is articu- 

 lated in youth by a suture on the frontal bone. In the middle of the 

 chanfrein is a tubercle, or a third horn, larger and much shorter, but 

 equally articulated by suture. 



The well-known accuracy of Dr. RUppell demand* every degree of 

 respect ; and if the figure alluded to be a correct representation of 

 the ordinary state of the adult Nubian male Giraffe, and not an acci- 

 dental deformity, the third born would form a good ground for specific 

 distinction. There are skulls of the Cape Giraffe, both male and 

 female, in the museum of the College of Surgeons, and that of the 

 male, which is an adult with the persistent teeth, has no such horn ; 

 but there is a considerable gradually-rising protuberance, which is 

 more strongly develop.*! than the same part in the female cranium. 

 In all the crania wbi'-'i wr hnvr awn, and in all the living specimens, 



es possess this protuberance as well as the males, though 

 high a degree of development ; and the true horns, at leas* 



the females 

 not in so hi 



the bony cores, are much larger in the male than in the female. 

 may be said that the living and dead specimens which were at first 

 received from North Africa were comparatively young, though some 

 of them were not so very young. In the giraffes in the Garden of the 

 Zoological Society at the Regent's Park the protuberance will be seen, 

 though that of the female U not quite so highly marked perhaps as 

 those of the males. In a paper read before the Zoological Society of 

 London, Professor Owen has shown that this middle protuberance 

 arising from the head is not a true horn articulated by a suture, but 

 merely a thickening of the os frontis. ThU position Professor Owen 

 is enabled to lay down from the section of the skull of a male 

 (Northern) Giraffe, and from the examination of various crania of 

 both Nubian and Cape (male and female) old and young giraffes. 

 There appears to be no evidence to lead to the conclusion that there 

 is anything at any time in this part of the structure naturally that 



Skull of the male Giraffe, from KUppcIl's figure. 



can be considered more than a mere frontal protuberance occasioned 

 by the thickening of the bone a protuberance which will not sepa- 

 rate upon maceration as the two horns will, in the young animal at 

 least The lightness of the cranium is owing in great measure to the 

 sinuses, which are minutely described by Professor Owen in his paper ; 

 these run along the whole upper part of the cranium, and the occiput 

 is raised by their extension. He shows that a principal object of 

 these sinuses is to increase the surface of the attachment of the liga- 

 ment supporting the head, and draws attention to the remarkable 

 vertical extension of the condyleg of the occiput a structure which 

 enables the animal to tilt its head back, and gracefully and easily to 

 raise it till it is on a line with the neck. The reader will find the 

 section of the head above alluded to in the museum of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons. In the same museum he will find entire crania 

 of the Cape Giraffe (male and female), with other detached bony parts , 

 and a perfect skeleton of the Nubian Giraffe, though it is that of a 

 comparatively young animal The position and appearance of the 

 elastic cartilages on the posterior edges of the scapulsc are here exhi- 

 bited, a beautiful provision for the easy springy carriage of the body, 

 which is principally suspended from the muscles there attached, and 

 slung as it were between these points and the sternal and lumbar 

 regions. In the British Museum and the museums of the Geological 

 Society and College of Surgeons, London, are specimens of the skele- 

 tons of this animal. 



Professor Owen found the lignmentum nuchtc immense, consisting 

 of two bilateral moieties ; it commences at the sacrum, gains fresh 

 accessions from each dorsal vetebra, the spines of which are remark- 

 ably elongated for that purpose, is inserted into all the cervical 

 vertebrae, with the exception of the atlas, and attached to the extended 

 surfaces of the occipital region of the skull produced by the organisa- 

 tion above alluded to. Before we proceed to notice the softer parts 

 we must refer to the dentition, which offers the same formula as that 

 characteristic of the deer, goat, antelope, sheep, and ox, namely, 



T .0 , 66 



Incisors, ; canines, ; molars, 



8 6 6 



= 32. 



In the ' Nova Acta Physico-medica Academie Caesarem Leopolilino- 

 Carolimc Natura! CurioHorurn,' torn, xii., part 1, is a paper by 1 )r. 

 U' Alton on the teeth of the Giraffe, written, it would seem, princi- 

 pally with a view to correct the notion apparently entertained by I >r. 

 Bojanus in a preceding paper in the same part, not only that the 

 dentition of the Merycotherium has certain points indicatory of that 

 animal being intermediate between the camels and the sheep, " camel- 

 iiiiini inter etovillum genus," but that it might possibly be the Giraffe. 

 Dr. D 1 Alton figures the teeth of the latter, and shows, by a compari- 

 son with those of the Merycotherium, their discrepancy both in size 

 and structure from those of the fossil animal. 



The tongue of the Giraffe requires particular notice. Sir Everard 

 Home remarks, that besides being the organ of taste, it has many 

 properties of the proboscis of the elephant, one being an elongation 

 of the organ of smell, the other of taste. The proboscis is incapable 



