62 THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Phillips received news that the giraffe had died when the 

 vessel was a few days out from Cape Town. " Its appetite was 

 good till within half an hour of its death, and until then it 

 appeared quite healthy." Information was at once given to the 

 Council, by whom Mr. Phillips was formally thanked " for the 

 kind and cordial manner in which he had acted." 



Messrs. Cannell and Wright offered a giraffe in November, 

 1834, on behalf of a correspondent then at Genoa. In their 

 letter the animal was described as being six years old, fifteen 

 feet high, with a beautiful figured skin, acclimated, and in 

 excellent health, strong, and vigorous. It Avas said to live on 

 beans and barley mixed, green herbage, bread, and fruit. The 

 price was 10,000 Spanish dollars, with delivery in Genoa. Taking 

 the dollar at a little under four shillings, this amounts to nearly 

 £2,000, probably the largest sum ever asked for a giraffe. An 

 endorsement on the letter shows that the Council were " un- 

 willing to treat for the purchase at a high price of an animal 

 at a distance from London." 



At the close of 1833 an arrangement was made with 

 M. Thibaut, then at Cairo, to proceed to Nubia to procure giraffes 

 for the Society. The animals were to be delivered in Malta, " and 

 it was not until his landing of them in that island that he was 

 entitled to receive the stipulated price, which was fixed at a rate 

 for each individual, diminishing in proportion to the number 

 that he should succeed in bringing with him." 



The story of his expedition is told in a letter addressed by 

 M. Thibaut to the Secretary, which was read at the meeting of 

 February 9, 1836, and printed in the Proceedings for that year 

 (pp. 9-12). He left Cairo in April, 1834, for Kordofan, where 

 he obtained five giraffes, four of which were killed by the cold 

 weather on the return route to Dongola. Another journey into 

 the desert resulted in the capture of three more giraffes, which, 

 with that left at Dongola, were sent down the Nile from Wadi 

 Haifa to Cairo and Alexandria, whence they were shipped to 

 Malta, where they arrived on November 21. After a quarantine 

 of twenty-five days they were removed to convenient quarters, 

 and the stipulated sum of £700 was paid to M. Thibaut. The 

 Council determined to avail themselves of his experience with 

 respect to the treatment of these valuable animals, and arranged 



