CHAPTER VII. 



IT is to Le Yaillant tliat we owe our first exact ideas 

 respecting the giraffe, 17835. 



With what a transport of joy he writes in describing 

 the first giraffe which fell under his hand ! 



"Pain, fatigue, cruel want, uncertainty for the 

 future, disgust sometimes for the past, all disappeared 

 in presence of this new prey. I could not withdraw 

 myself from contemplating it. I measured its enor- 

 mous height. I looked with astonishment from the 

 animal destroyed to the instrument which had de- 

 stroyed him. I called my people to examine him over 

 and over again ; and although each one of them could 

 have done as much, and although we had slaughtered 

 heavier and far more dangerous animals, yet I had 

 been the first to kill this one; and I was about to 

 enrich natural history, to destroy romance, and in 

 my turn to establish a truth. " 



This giraffe measured sixteen feet three inches from 

 his hoofs to his head. In general the males measure 

 from fifteen feet to fifteen feet six inches, and the 



