42 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. 



manner. And all the front part of the mouth, armed 

 with these awkward misshapen projections is broadened 

 out so as to give support to the enormous blubbery lips. 



Not a refined face, Stumpy's, is it ? Scarcely a refined 

 animal in any sense. Its habit of wallowing in the water 

 has made it lumpy and unwieldy, and, according to the 

 board-school boy, thick-skinned. " The hippopotamus," 

 said this little fellow, "is like a little mashed elephant 

 with its trunk sawed off. Its skin is so thick that it can 

 stay in its pond all day without the water soakin' through." 

 I like that boy. He had imagination. I forget whether 

 it was the same boy or another who wrote they had been 

 to the Zoo and were told to write of what they saw : 

 " When we got to the giraffs, I did like them. They are 

 just the same as the picters, only alive and walking about. 

 They have little tails, but the giraffs is so big, that you'd 

 say as they couldn't wag 'em. But they can, just as easy 

 as a little dog can, whether you bleeve it, or don't." Per- 

 sonally, I do believe, for I've seen them do it. 



It is with the giraffe's head, however, and not his tail, 

 that I have now to do. A much more refined personage 

 is Mr. Long-neck. He occupies a good social, but a some- 

 what peculiar zoological position in the animal kingdom, 

 standing near the horned cattle and the antlered deer, 

 allied to both and yet distinct from either group. Like 

 all these animals, he has no cutting or canine teeth in the 

 front of the upper jaw, but, instead, there is a pad against 

 which the lower teeth close. The giraffe makes great use 

 of his long flexible tongue, with which he daintily plucks 

 the leaves of the trees on which he feeds. From his 

 great height he can reach leaves eighteen or nineteen feet 

 from the ground. But his favourite food, Sir Samuel 

 Baker tells us, is the red-barked mimosa, which seldom 

 grows higher than fourteen or fifteen feet, and on the flat 



