288 ANECDOTES OF ANIMALS. 



inches high, fourteen long, and weighs about five 

 pounds. Its throat, head, and neck are all white ; its 

 body is grey, striped with black, and spotted at equal 

 distances with yellow. Although very timid, it is to be 

 tamed ; but if angry, it kicks out its little hind-legs 

 and slender pointed hoofs with great violence. One 

 which was domesticated was placed on a dinner-table, 

 where it ran about and nibbled fruit from the dishes, 

 answered to its name, and returned the caresses which 

 were bestowed upon it. Its terror of dogs was at first 

 very great, but at last it allowed a small terrier to 

 come close to it, and heard the bark of others without 

 being uneasy. A pair were brought to England, but 

 soon died from inflammation of the lungs, the common 

 and fatal disease which attacks almost all tropical 

 animals in this climate. 



GIRAFFES. 



SOME years ago Giraffes were thought to be fabulous 

 animals ; and the ill-treated Le Yaillant was supposed 

 to have invented them, in spite of the description which 

 the Romans left of them. He was a little poetical in 

 his style of writing, which John Bull is not fond of 

 when facts are narrated, so John Bull begged to doubt 

 his assertions. He lived, however, to see his veracity 

 established, which the kind old man, a year or two 

 before his death, assured me was a great happiness to 

 him. Lord Caledon brought a skin home from the 

 Cape, and, badly as it was stuffed, it began to dawn on 

 the minds of the Europeans that such an animal really 

 existed. Then a live one was brought to Paris, and 



