The Giraffe. 165 



The head is the most beautiful part of the animal : it 

 is small, and the eyes are large, brilliant, and very full. 

 Between the eyes, and above the nose, is a swelling very 

 prominent and well-defined. This prominence is not a 

 fleshy excrescence, but an enlargement of the bony sub- 

 stance ; and it seems to be similar to the two little lumps, 

 or horns, with which the top of the head is armed, and 

 which, being several inches in length, spring on each 

 side of the head, just above the ears, and are terminated 

 by a thick tuft of stiff upright hairs. The neck is re- 

 markably elongated, and it is furnished with a very 

 short, stiff mane, which stands out erect from the skin. 

 The height of a full-grown Giraffe in a wild state is said 

 to be seventeen or eighteen feet, measuring from the 

 hoofs to the tip of the ears ; but none of those in England 

 exceed fourteen feet. At first sight, the fore legs appear 

 much longer than the hind ones ; but the fact is, that ' 

 the legs are of the same length, and it is only the height 

 of the withers that occasions the apparent disproportion. 

 Le Vaillant was the first well-informed naturalist who 

 studied the habits of the Giraffe in its wild state. '* If," 

 he says, " 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 

 measured, after I killed it, sixteen feet four inches from 

 the hoof to the extremity of its horns. I use this ex- 

 pression in order to be understood ; for the Giraffe has 

 no real horns ; but between its ears, at the upper ex- 

 tremity of the head, arise in a perpendicular and 

 parallel direction two excrescences from the cranium, 

 which without any joint stretch to the height of eight or 

 nine inches, terminating in a convex knob, and are sur- 

 rounded by a row of strong straight hair, which over- 

 tops them by several lines. The female is generally 



lower than the male In consequence of the 



number of these animals which I killed, or had an op- 

 portunity of seeing, I may establish as a certain rule 

 that the males are generally fifteen or sixteen feet in 

 height, and the females from thirteen to fourteen feet." 

 The colour of the Giraffe is a light fawn, marked with 

 spots only a few shades darker. The legs are very 



