302 THE STORY OF THE GIRAFFE. 



employed by the cow in defending her young, and likewise in the contests 

 which take place among the m'ales during the pairing season. 



Some writers have discovered ugliness and a want of grace in the girafife, 

 but I consider that he is one of the most strikingly beautiful animals in the 

 creation; and when a herd is seen scattered through a grove of the pic- 

 turesque parasol-topped acacias which adorn their native plains, and on 

 whose uppermost shoots they are enabled to browse through the colossal 

 height with which nature has so admirably endowed them, he must indeed 

 be slow of conception who fails to discover both grace and dignity in all 

 their movements. 



As in the case of most wild animals, the surroundings of the giraffe are 

 a protection to him. Among the great South African forests, where innum- 

 erable blasted and weather-beaten trunks and stems occur, I have repeatedly 

 been in doubt as to the presence of a troop, until I had recourse to my field 

 glass, and I have known even the practiced eye of the natives deceived, at 

 one time mistaking these trunks for giraffes, and again confounding real 

 giraffes with these aged veterans of the forest. The dappled hide of the 

 giraffe blends harmoniously with the splashes of light and shade formed by 

 the sun glinting through the foliage of the trees beneath which the animals 

 take their stand, and thus intensifies the illusion. 



Giraft'es range in herds of sixteen to one hundred. They are hunted 

 principally for their hides, which are worth from twenty-five to forty dollars 

 each. 



I never shot one of these harmless, beautiful creatures, although I have 

 had many opportunities. 



