ZOOLOGY 



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being shot. L'nfortuiiately, tliougli this photograph gives distinctly the 

 markings of the animal, it does not enable the reader of these notes 

 to distinguish the five horn-bumps; but a careful drawing in colour of 

 the head of this giraffe from a side view is given in Chapter I. facing 

 p. 25. This variety of giraffe would appear to differ from its northern 

 congeners slightly in its coloration. The old males or females have the 

 spots or patches almost ])urple- black, while the hair in between the spots 

 is a dirty brown. This is the coloration of the upper part of the body, 

 but the legs and belly in the old specimens tend to be nearly pure white. 

 Seen from a distance, therefore, these five-horned giraffes when old looked 

 black and white, or mainly black, since the white part of their bodies is 

 often hidden by brushwood. The young, especially amongst the females, 

 are coloured much like the ordinary northern giraffe, with orange-coloured 

 patches on a cream-coloured ground. But before reaching the old stage 

 of nearly black and white, the adult males and females offer a very beautiful 

 coloration. The great polygonal patches are orange-brown, with a ])urple 

 rosette or centre, liut some of the spots about the face are purple-black 

 on a white ground. I also think that these five-horned giraffes are sliglitly 

 taller than the other forms of this animal. One male that we shot certainly 

 carried his head at a height twenty feet above the ground. These animals 

 go about in large herds, and the old ones, males or females, seem to stand 

 sentry whilst the rest of the herd browses unconcernedly on the branches 

 and leaves of trees. These sentries often choose a small hillock or large 

 ant-hill, and look veritable lighthouses in the distance as they stand out 

 against the sky. Seen any way but broadside, they do not appear to be 

 beasts, but resemble a huge, tapering black tree-trunk reared into the sky, 

 the neck being carried like a perpendicular tower. I have never seen a 

 more im})ressive sight in Africa than a large herd of these animals moving 

 about unconcernedly, taking little or no notice of our presence amongst 

 them ; for in this country round ^Nlount Elgon they had evidently been 

 uuattacked by man for a long period. When the four specimens above 

 referred to had been obtained, all further shooting was rigorously stopped, 

 and therefore we passed through subsequent herds containing hundreds of 

 these animals witliout any feeling of blood-guiltiness. The Somali giraffe,* 

 a very well-marked species, on whose hide the place of spots is taken by 

 a reticulation of whitish lines on an almost red ground colour, probably 

 penetrates to the vicinitv of Lake Raringo and the south end of Lake 

 Kudolf. 



The author of this book remembers having encountered in his child- 

 hood — say in the later "sixties — a book about strange beasts in Central 

 Africa, which was based on information derived iVom early Dutch and 



* Giraffa reticulata. 



