HUNTING THE GIRAFFE 



Mr. Roosevelt Bags Two Bull Girafifes and Kermit Rides Down and Kills One — Diffi- 

 culties in Hunting This Long-Sighted and Wary Animal — Peculiar Habits of the 

 Giraffe. 



Mr. Roosevelt was anxious to secure a bull ahd a cow giraffe for the 

 National Museum. While he often saw both single animals and small troops 

 of this long-necked inhabitant of the velt he soon found that it was very 

 difficult to approach it by stalking. The giraffe, owing to its immense tall 

 neck, on the top of which its head towers eighteen feet above the ground, 

 and its keen eyesight, is able to descry its enemies at a distance of one to two 

 miles, and thus has time to disappear before the sportsman can reach it. It 

 was while visiting at Captain Slatter's ostrich farm near the picturesque 

 Kilimakiu mountain and immediately after the exciting rhinoceros hunt re- 

 lated in another chapter, that the Colonel got a chance to satisfy his desire. 

 Starting out from the camp, which was pitched at Potha, in search of prey 

 he came across a small herd of giraffes browsing in a little grove of mimosa 

 trees. But all his swift bullets could do was to chase the beasts away. To 

 see the whole herd of giraffes in rapid motion was a strange sight to our 

 American hunter. The characteristic pace made their streaked bodies swing 

 to and fro and their necks looked like so many masts of ships rolling about 

 in a heavy sea, while the pendulous swinging of their tails accompanied every 

 motion of their legs. 



The giraffe is not only the tallest of all animals but is also the only animal 

 which is entirely mute. This strange lack of voice has caused a distinguished 

 African traveler to assume that his tail takes the place of an "organ of 

 speech." Its variegated swinging, turning, switching and curving constitute, 

 in his opinion, a code of signals, a kind of animal "deaf-and-dumb language." 

 This "tail language" is supplemented by expressive postures of neck and 

 body, so that the giraffes have quite an extensive vocabulary at their com- 

 mand in communicating with one another. 



The giraffe is by nature shy, and when much hunted, like all other 

 animals, becomes very cautious. In the open plains it is very difficult to 

 approach it nearer than within five or six hundred feet. It is exceedingly 

 keen of smell and hearing, and still more so of sight, and taxes the skill of 

 even a good sportsman to the utmost, especially in East Africa, where the 



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