GIRAFFA. 



GIRAFFA. 



1026 



f ul a half nearer than usual to the hind feet. A Camelopardali* which 

 JJajor Gordon wounded in the leg, so that it could not raise itself 

 1 .-I n 11 the ground, nevertheless did not show the least signs of anger or 

 .tment; but, when its throat was cut, spurned against the ground 

 with a force far beyond that of any other animal. The viscera 

 resemble those of gazelles, but this animal had no porus oeriferus. 

 The flesh of the young ones is very good eating, but sometimes has a 

 strong flavour of a certain shrub, which is supposed to be a species of 

 Mimoaa. The Hottentots are particularly fond of the marrow, and 

 chiefly for the sake of this hunt the beast, and kill it with their 

 poisoned arrows. Of the skin they make vessels, in which they keep 

 water and other liquors." 



Le Vaillant did not meet with the Giraffe till his second journey into 

 the interior of Africa from the Cape during the years 1783-84-85. But 

 at the end of the second volume of his first journey, which commenced 

 in 1780, he gives figures of a male and female Giraffe, and a compen- 

 dium of his observations, remarking that it is a kind of anticipation 

 which is owing in some measure to solicitations which he ought to 

 consider as commands. As Le Vaillant appears to be the first well- 

 informed zoologist of modern times who saw the animal in a state of 

 nature, and as he hunted it and brought it down with his own fusil, 

 his account is worthy of particular attention. 



" If," says Le Vaillant, " among the known quadrupeds precedency 

 be allowed to height, the giraffe without doubt must hold the first 

 rank. A male which I have in my collection, and of which a figure 

 is given in the eighth plate, measured, after I killed it, 16 feet 4 inches, 

 from the hoof to the extremity of its horns. I use this expression 

 in order to be understood ; for the giraffe has no real horns, but 

 between its ears, at the iipper extremity of the head, arise in a per- 

 pendicular and parallel direction, two excrescences from the cranium, 

 which without any joint stretch to the height of 8 or 9 inches, termi- 

 nating in a convex knob, and are surrounded by a row of strong 

 straight hair, which overtops them by several lines. The female is 

 generally lower than the male. That represented in the following 

 plate wag only 13 feet 6 inches in height ; and her incisive teeth, which 

 were almost all worn away, incontestibly proved that she had 

 attained to her full growth. In consequence of the number of these 

 animals which I killed and had an opportunity of seeing, I may 

 establish as a certain rule that the males are generally 15 or 16 feet 

 in height, and the females from 13 to 14 feet. Whoever should judge 

 of the thickness of these animals from the above dimensions would 

 be greatly deceived. The eye indeed that is accustomed to the long 

 full figures of Europe, finds no proportion between a height of 16 feet 

 and a length of 7 feet, taken from the tail to the breast. Another 

 deformity, if it may be called so, makes us contrast the parts before 

 with those behind. The former have a considerable thickness towards 

 the shoulder, but the latter are so thin and meagre that they do not 

 seem formed the one for the other. Naturalists and travellers who 

 speak of the giraffe all agree in making the hind legs only half the 

 length of those before ; but did those who assert so really see the 

 animal, or, if they saw it, did they consider it attentively? An 

 Italian author, who certainly never saw it, caused a figure of it to be 

 engraved at Venice, in a work entitled 'Descrizioni degli Animali," 

 1771. This figure is formed exactly from the descriptions which had 

 then been published of the animal ; but this exactness renders it so 

 ridiculous, that we must consider it, on the part of the Italian author, 

 as a severe criticism on all the accounts which had appeared, and 

 which have been so often repeated." Le Vaillant then goes on to 

 remark that of all the old authors who have treated of this animal, 

 Gillius is the most accurate, who expressly says that the Giraffe has 

 its four legs of the same length ; but that the fore thighs are so long 

 in comparison of those behind that tne back of the animal appears 

 inclined like the roof of a house. " If," says Le Vaillant, " by the 

 fore thighs Gillius means omoplate, or shoulder-blade, his assertion is 

 just, and I perfectly agree with him." In a note it is added, that 

 among the moderns the most exact engraving is without doubt that 

 which was executed under the inspection of Dr. Allaman, from draw- 

 ings furnished by Colonel Gordon. After observing that the account 

 of Heliodorus is far from being correct, Le Vaillant continues thus : 

 " The horns, forming part of the cranium, as I have already said, 

 can never fall off. They are not solid like those of the stag, nor com- 

 posed of any substance analogous to those of the ox ; much less do 

 they consist of hair united, as Buffon supposes. They are simply of 

 a bony calcareous substance, divided by a multitude of small pores 

 like all bones, and are covered throughout their whole length with 

 short coarse hair, which has no resemblance to the soft down that 

 covers the young horns of roe-bucks or stags." The French traveller 

 then notices the defective figures of Buffon and Vosmaer, observing 

 that the defects disgrace and render of no utility to science such false 

 representations, which people very improperly confide in on account 

 of the reputation of the authors who publish them. He states that 

 the Giraffes, both male and female, are spotted in the same manner ; 

 and that, without paying attention to the inequality of size, they 

 may easily be distinguished from each other, even at a distance. The 

 male, on a grayish-white ground, has large spots of a dark-brown 

 colour, almost approaching to black ; and the female, on a like 

 ground, has rpots of a tawny colour, which renders them less 

 striking. The young males are at first of the colour of their 



HAT. HIST. civ. vol.. ii. 



mother, but in proportion as they advance in age and size they 

 become browner. 



The Giraffes feed upon the leaves of trees, and particularly on those 

 of a Mimosa, peculiar to the districts which they inhabit. Meadow-grass 

 also forms part of their aliment ; but they are not under the necessity 

 of kneeling down to browze or to drink, as some have improperly 

 believed. They often lie down to ruminate or to sleep, which causes 

 a considerable callosity on the sternum, and makes their knees to be 

 covered with a hard skin. "Had nature," says our author in conclu- 

 sion, "endowed the giraffe with an irascible disposition, it certainly 

 would have had cause to complain ; for the means with which it is 

 provided either for attack or defence are very trifling. It is indeed a 

 peaceful and timid animal ; it shuns danger, and flies from it, trotting 

 along very fast : a good horse can with difficulty overtake it. It is 

 said that it has not strength to defend itself; but I know, beyond a 

 doubt, that by its kicking it often tires out, discourages, and even 

 beats off the lion. Except upon one occasion I never saw it make use 

 of its horns : they may be considered of no utility, were it possible 

 to doubt the wisdom and precautions employed by nature, whose 

 motives we are not always able to comprehend." 



Gmelin, in his 13th edition of the 'Systema Naturse' (1789), 

 elevates the Giraffe to a genus under the name of Camelopardalis, 

 with the following generic characters : Horns very simple, covered 

 with skin (simplicissima pelle tecta), terminated by a fasciculus of 

 black hairs. Lower incisor teeth (dentes primores inferiores) eight, 

 spatulate, the last deeply bilobated externally. He gives one species, 

 Camelopardalia Glraffa, and says that it inhabits Senuaar, between 

 Upper Egypt and Ethiopia, where it has been now seen : that it is 

 rare in Abyssinia, and most rare in more southern Africa ; that its 

 haunts are leafy woods ; that it is wild, timid, very swift (celerrima) , 

 and elegant ; that it reposes prone like a camel ; that it feeds on grass 

 by divaricating the fore legs, but that its principal food consists of the 

 leaves of trees. 



In the third edition of Pennant (1793), several additions are made 

 to the description of the Giraffe, but he does not notice Le Vaillant, 

 though the first part of the travels of the latter, containing the 

 account which we have already given, was published before the issue 

 of the edition and before it left Pennant's hands ; for the preface 

 with his signature is dated 'Downing, December 1792.' He alludes 

 to the measurement in the ' Journal Historique,' and, quoting Pater- 

 son, describes the horns as one foot and half an inch long, ending 

 abrupt, and with a tuft of hair issuing from the summit, adding that 

 they are not deciduous. 



" The height of that killed by Mr. Paterson," he continues, " was 

 only 15 feet. The head is of an uniform reddish-brown ; the neck, 

 back, and sides, outsides of the shoulders and thighs, varied with 

 large tesselated, dull rust-coloured marks of a square form, with 

 white septaria, or narrow divisions ; on the sides the marks are less 

 regular ; the belly and legs whitish, faintly spotted ; the part of the 

 tail next to the body is covered with short smooth hairs, and the 

 trunk is very slender ; towards the end the hairs are very long, black, 

 and coarse, and forming a great tuft hanging far beyond the tip of 

 the trunk; the hoofs are cloven, 9 inches broad, and black. This 

 animal wants the spurious hoofs. The female has four teats. Mr. 

 Paterson saw six of these animals together ; possibly they might have 

 been the male and female with their four young." Pennant then goes 

 on to say that the animal inhabits the forests of Ethiopia, and other 

 interior parts of Africa, almost as high as Senegal ; but is not found 

 in Guinea or any of the western parts, and, he believes, not farther 

 south than about 28 10' lat., ('Journal Historique '), among the 

 Nemaques (Namaquas) on the northern side of the Orange River, and 

 that it is very timid but not swift. He says, after alluding to the 

 necessity for the animal to divaricate its legs very widely if it would 

 graze, that it therefore lives by browzing the leaves of trees, especially 

 those of the Mimosa and a tree called the wild apricot. " When it 

 would leap," he adds, " it lifts up its fore legs and then its hind, like 

 a horse whose fore legs are tied. It runs very badly and awkwardly, 

 but continues its course very long before it stops. It is very difficult 

 to distinguish this animal at a distance, for when standing they look 

 like a decayed tree, by reason of their form, so are passed by, and by 

 that deception escape." Immediately after this, Pennant repeats 

 verbatim the sentence from the first edition, stating that he had seen 

 the skin of one at Leyden, otherwise he might have entertained 

 doubts, &c. The figure given in this edition is evidently taken from 

 a stuffed specimen, but comes much nearer to the animal than any of 

 those we have hitherto mentioned, except Le Vaillaut's. Mr. Paterson 

 who is here mentioned was sent to the Cape as a botanist by Lady 

 Strathmore, and he brought to this country, on his return, the first 

 entire specimen of a Giraffe recorded. Lady Strathmore gave it to 

 John Hunter, in whose museum it long was, and the Trustees of the 

 Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons transferred the skin to the 

 British Museum when that of the college was cleared of the stuffed 

 skins to make way for preparations more in unison with its general 

 zootomical character. This skin, now almost entirely hairless, is still 

 to be seen in the British Museum, where there are also four other 

 specimens and nn entire skeleton. 



The animal, after this, still continued to be noticed in books of 

 Natural Historv, but nothing worthy of notice occurs to us, though 



3 u 



