1021 



GIRAFFA. 



GIRAFFA. 



1022 





tied to the fore legs below what is called, in common parlance, the 

 knee. A green monkey with a red face, &c., and a long tail, is 

 climbing up the Giraffe's neck. The subligacula of the leaders, who 

 appear to be Nubians (?), are different ; those of the one are spotted 

 like a leopard-skin, and thia man has a dark blue close cap on his 

 head ; those of the other show a sort of reticulated pattern, and he 

 wears a close cap with a light ground and light blue spots. And here 

 it is worthy of note that we find in the enumeration of the rare 

 animals exhibited in the Pompa of Ptolemy Philadelphus at Alex- 

 andria, described in so lively a manner by one of the Deipnoaophists 

 (Athenaius, lib. v. c. 8, s. 32), one camelopard KaMTjAoiropSoAis /nia. 



Whether the Itrrdfoios (Hippardius Horse-Pard) of Aristotle (lib. iL, 

 c. 1) be the Giraffe appears to be doubtful, and the prevailing opinion 

 seems to be that he meant by the word some species of Deer. The 

 passage which mentions the fmre'Aaifwj (Hippelaphus Horse-Stag or 

 Horse-Deer)* states that both these animals have cloven feet and the 

 head armed with horns, but that the female of the Hippelaphus has 

 no horns ; thereby intimating that the female of the Hippardius had. 

 This however would be equally applicable to the rein-deer. 



The celebrated Praenestine pavement, said to have been made by 

 the direction of Sylla, who had held the office of quaestor in Numidia, 

 represents the Giraffe both grazing and browzing, and it seems to be 

 a good opinion that the artists employed to work in mosaic even in 

 Italy and Spain were Egyptian Greeks. Still the animal itself does 

 not appear to have been seen in Italy before the time of Julius 

 Caesar, who exhibited it among other animals in the Circensian 

 games.t 



In his description Pliny appears to have taken the darker parts of 

 the skin of the animal as forming the ground colour, and relieved by 

 the lighter tint. This ia probably the same animal as that mentioned 

 by Varro, who alludes to a Camelopardalix, as having been lately 

 brought from Alexandria, in figure like a camel and spotted like a 

 panther. The Giraffe afterwards became a not unfrequent and con- 

 spicuous part of the Roman shows. Thus the third Gordian had ten 

 at one time. We trace the animal in the writings of Artemidorus, 

 Strabo, Oppian, Heliodorus, and others, till the great blank of 

 literature intervenes. 



After the revival of letters, we find in Belon a good description 

 upon the whole, and a very tolerable figure. In the small 4to. 

 entitled 'Portraits d'Oyseaux, Animaux, Serpens, Arbres, Hommea 

 et Femmes d' Arable et Egypte, observez par P. Belon du Mans, le 

 tout enrichy de Quatrains, pour plus facile cognoissance des Oyseaux, 

 et autres Portraits' (1557), the figure is given with only the following 

 notice and quatrain above and below it : ' Portrait de la Giraffe, 

 nominee en Latin Camelopardalis : les Arabea 1'appellent Zuiiiapa.' 

 The quatrain ia 



" Belles de corps les Giraffes, et doulces, 

 i int en maintien du Chcmeau la maniere. 

 Leurs pieda sont haults devant et has derriere ; 



Foil Mane et roux ; cornes eourtes et mousses." 



Gillius states that he saw three at Cairo, and gives a description of 

 the animal. Prosper Alpinus relates that he saw a Camelopardalis, 

 " quern Arabes Zurnap, et nostri Giraffam appellant," and likens it to 

 a very elegant small horse. 



Gesner, who among other synonyms, enumerates Giraffa (alias 

 Gyrapha, Girapha) as the name of the Camelopardalii, or Camelo- 

 pardta, or Camelia Indica, gives also Zirafa, as well as Nabit 

 (Ethiopian), Girnafa, (Persian), and Serapha (Arabian). His figure, 

 which he says is taken from an Italian printed book, by an anony- 

 mous author, is evidently made up principally from the descriptions 

 of the ancients. It baa antelope-like subrecurved sharp horns, and a 

 short sharp-pointed tail with something of an upward curve, in which 

 may be traced the ' caudam Dorcalidia, id eat Capreoli,' as the text 

 hag it, attributed to the animal by Oppian. In the 'Additiones' 

 (Icones, &c.) is presented a much better figure, as far as the horns are 

 concerned, but with a neck, and of a height, generally out of all 

 proportion. The drawing is said to have been diligently taken at 

 Constantinople, where the animal had been sent as a present to the 

 emperor of the Turks, and transmitted to a friend in Germany, A.D. 

 1559. The figure is without spots. 



Aldrovandus gives a figure of the animal with its elongated tongue 

 protruded and browzing upon a tree, which, awkward though it be, 

 would be not very far wrong, were it not for the flowing mane and 

 little sharp horns with a curve forwards. 



Jonston gives no lesa than five figures, three with and two without 

 pots, some with and some without manes, under the names of 

 Camtlopardai, Camelopardalis, Gierafra, and Cameli Indici, but all 

 with sharp horns of various degrees of curvature, besides two long- 



Mr. Ogilby says (' Zool. Proe.' 1836) that Tragelaphut Bippelaphus 

 (Antiliipf picta of authors), the Nylghau [ANTII.OPK,*;] or Ncelghae, and not 

 the Saumcr Deer of India, is the animal described by Aristotle under the name 

 of Hippelaphus. 



t "Nabin (Pliny, lib. Till. e. 18) .Ethiopes vocant, collo similem eqno, 

 pedibttfl et cruribus bovi, camclo caplte, albis maculis rutilum colorem distin- 

 gnentibus, umle appcllata Camelopardalis, dictatoris CeBsaris Circensibus ludin 

 primum visa Komie. Kx eo subinde cernitur, aspcctu magis quam feritatc 

 conipiciia : quare etiam oris feras nomen invenit." 



necked hornless spotted quadrupeds, one designated as Camelui 

 Jndicus versicolor, the other as alius Camdus. 



It ia not to be wondered at that some of the figures and deacriptions 

 given by such writers as the author last quoted cast a doubt upon 

 the very existence of the animal, and it may not be uninteresting, 

 before we proceed to the later writers on the natural history of this 

 extraordinary animal, to note some of the other evidences preaerved 

 in old or uncommon books. In the ' Historia del Grand Tamerlane' 

 (Madrid, 1782), "The ambassadors sent by the king of Castile, 

 Henry III. (1403 2nd embassy), to the great Tamerlane, arrived at a 

 town called Hoy, now Khoy, on the confines of Armenia, where the 

 Persian empire commences. At that town they fell in with an 

 ambassador whom the sultan of Babylon had sent to Tamerlane. He 

 had with him as many as twenty horaemen and fifteen camels, laden 

 with presents which the sultan aent to Tamerlane. Besides these 

 there were six ostriches, and an animal called Jornufa (Giraffe), which 

 animal was formed in the following manner : In body it was of the 

 size of a horae, with the neck very long, and the fore legs much 

 taller than the hinder ones ; the hoof was cloven like that of the ox. 

 From the hoof of the fore leg to the top of the ahoulder it was 

 aixteen hands (palmos) ; and from the shouldera to the head sixteen 

 hands more ; and when it raised its neck it lifted its head so high as 

 to be a wonder to all. The neck waa thin like that of the stag ; and 

 so great was the disproportion of the length of the hinder legs to 

 that of the fore legs, that one who was not acquainted with it would 

 think that it was sitting, although it was standing. It had the 

 haunches slanting like the buffalo, and a white belly. The akin waa 

 of a golden hue and marked with large round white spots. In the 

 lower part of the face it resembled the deer ; on the forehead it had 

 a high and pointed prominence, very large and round eyes, and the 

 ears like those of a horse ; near the ears two small round horna, the 

 greater part covered with hair, resembling the horns of deer on their 

 first appearance. Such waa the length of the neck, and the animal 

 raised its head so high when he chose, that he could eat with facility 

 from the top of a lofty wall ; and from the top of a high tree it 

 could reach to eat the leaves, of which it devoured great quantitiea. 

 So that altogether it was a marvellous sight to one who had never 

 seen such an animal before." (' Library of Entertaining Knowledge 

 Menageries.') 



In the ' Principal Occurrents in John Leo (Leo Africanus) his Ninth 

 Booke of the Historie of Africa ' (Purchas, lib. vi. c. 1, sec. 9), we find 

 among the animals of Ethiopia, " The Giraffa, so savage and wild 

 that it ia a very rare matter to see any of them ; for they hide them- 

 selves among the deaerts and woods where no other beasts uae to 

 come j and so soon as one of them espieth a man it flieth forthwith, 

 though not very swiftly. It is headed like a camell, eared like an 

 oxe, and footed like a * ; neither are any taken by hunters 



but when they are very young." In the index of the same bo'ok we 

 find " Camelopardalis, a huge wilde beast ; " and a reference to page 

 1183, where we find (Purchas, lib. vii. c. 8, s. 2) in the same paragraph, 

 where mention ia made of the Abassine soil (Abaaaia, from Fernandez), 

 thia sentence: "Hares, goats, harts, boars, elephants, camells, buffala, 

 lions, panthers, tigrea, rhinocerotea, and other creatures, are there 

 seene, and one so huge that a man sitting on horsebacke may pass 

 uprighte under his belly ; hia shape is like a camell, but his nature 

 divers, feeding on leavea which he reacheth from the tops of trees 

 with hia necke stretched forth." In the margin is printed, " This 

 aeemeth to be the Camelopardalis ; " and, indeed, the description will 

 do very well for it, with the exception of the horse and hia rider 

 passing " upright under hia belly." 



Again, in the fifth volume, ',The Sixt Booke, chap, i., of Africa, and 

 the Creaturea therein,' and s. 2, " Of the beasts, wild and tame," is 

 mentioned "the Giraffa, or Camelopardalis, a beaat not often seene, 

 yet very tame, and of a strange composition, mixed of a libard, hart, 

 buffe, and camell, and by reason of his long legs before, and shorter 

 behinde, not able to graze without difficultie ; but with hia high head, 

 which he can stretch forth halfe a pike's length in height, feeds on the 

 leaves and boughs of trees. 



In a note ia added, "P. Bellon, lib. ii. c. 49, doth largely describe 

 him. (See hia description in Moreson and Sandye.) Also Master 

 Sanderson saw one at Cairo, and hath described him in his ' Voyage,' 

 which I have printed." (Tom. i. lib. 9.) Upon turning to the passage 

 (lib. ix. c. 16, s. 2) it appears that Sanderson saw the animal at 

 Couatantinople. " The admirableat and fairest beast I ever saw waa a 

 Jarraff, aa tamo aa a domesticall deere, and of a reddiah deere colour, 

 white brested, and cloven-footed ; he was of a very great height, his 

 fore leggea longer than the hinder, a very long necke, and headed like 

 a camell, except two atumpes of home on hia head. Thia faireat animal 1 

 was sent out of ^Ethiopia to this Great Turke's father for a present. 

 Two Turkes, the keepers of him, would make him kneele, but not 

 before any Christian for any money. An elephant that stood where 

 this faire beast was the keepers would make to stand with all his four 

 legges, his feet close together, upon a round atone, and alike to us to 

 bend his fore leggea." t 



Here there is a word wanting in the original. 



t c. xvi. 



" By the permission of Almightic God, 

 Sundrie the personal! voyages performed by John Sanderson, of London, 



