ITT. LONG-NOSE, LONG-NECK, AND STUMPY. 39 



is bent, an angle, with its hinge directed forwards. Higher 

 up, near the body, the leg is hinged so as to swing out 

 freely in front ; and lower down, a little above the hoof, 

 the horny substance of which is very beautiful, there is 

 another hinged joint. This lowest hinge-joint answers to 

 the knuckles of your own middle and third fingers, and 

 the hoofs to your finger-nails. The giraffe has only two 

 fingers or digits. The knee answers to your wrist, and 

 the long bones in the lower part of the fore-leg to the 

 bones you may feel in your own hand between the wrist 

 and the knuckles. Above the knee is the part that 

 corresponds with your fore-arm below the elbow, the 

 giraffe's elbow being close to the body. The upper arm 

 is easily traceable, as the muscles swell out beneath the 

 skin. In the elephant this upper arm is relatively longer, 

 and when he kneels down to be mounted he bends his 

 fore-leg at the elbow with all the lower part of the limb 

 projecting in front. The wrist is quite low down near the 

 flat five-toed foot with its curious large nails or hoofs. 



The same kind of story is told by the hind limb. The 

 ankle-joint in the giraffe is high up, the part answering to 

 our heel being half-way up the leg. I will not call it, as 

 it is called in the horse, the hough (hock) lest you should 

 say " No, it isn't that, it's his heel." The thigh is short 

 and shades off gracefully into the body. But in the 

 elephant the thigh is much longer, and the ankle-joint is 

 not very far above the foot, which has four (rarely five) 

 nails in the Indian elephant, and three in his African 

 large-eared cousin. Now watch the elephant walk. The 

 gait is at first sight curious and awkward. And why ? 

 Because of the unusual position of the elbow and the 

 knee, which are much lower down the leg than in most of 

 the quadrupeds we are wont to see, to whose limb-move- 

 ments we insensibly grow accustomed. 



