430 



THE CLOVEN-HOOFED ANIMALS. 



to twenty feet above the ground. The tail measures 

 forty-four inches, including the tuft of hair at the 

 end and thirty-two inches without it. The distance 

 from the tip of the muzzle to the base of the tail 

 amounts to thirteen and one-third feet ; the weight 

 is i, ooo pounds. These external measurements alone 

 serve to show that the Giraffe deviates in its shape 

 from all other mammals; but its anatomical structure 

 is so remarkable as to require a detailed description. 

 The Giraffe appears, as we said before, not only as 

 a queer compromise between the Panther and the 

 Camel, but seems to have been fabricated, as it were, 

 out of the component parts of the bodies of different 

 animals. Head and body seem to be taken from 

 the Horse, neck and shoulders from the Camel, the 

 ears from the Ox, the tail from the Ass, the legs 

 from the Antelope, while the coloring and mark- 

 ings of the sleek skin remind one of the spots of a 

 Panther. Such a combination can not fail to pro- 

 duce an animal of abnormal shape, and nobody is 

 likely to be inclined to call a Giraffe beautiful. The 

 short body is entirely out of proportion to the long 

 legs and neck ; the precipitously sloping back must 

 be pronounced ugly from an artistic standpoint, and 

 the immense height of the animal does not con- 

 tribute to its beauty by any means. The lines of the 

 head are magnificent, the eye of wondrous beauty 

 and the markings of the skin are attractive, but all 

 the rest is queer and striking, making the Giraffes 

 veritable oddities. 



Special Char- The elongated head of the Giraffe 

 acteristica of the appears longer than it really is, on 

 Giraffe. account of its rather thin muzzle; it 

 has very large eyes of an exceeding brightness, and 

 yet extremely gentle in expression, large, delicate 

 and excessively mobile ears about six inches long; 

 and two projections on the forehead, which faintly 

 resemble horns, and are somewhat shorter than the 

 ears. Between the two there is a third roundish pro- 

 tuberance of the bone, a third horn, as it were. The 

 neck is as long as the fore-legs, thin, laterally com- 

 pressed and adorned with a pretty crest of hair on 

 the upper posterior surface. The body is broad 

 across the chest, much higher at the withers than at 

 the crupper; and somewhat depressed along the mid- 

 dle line. It is strongly characterized in the fore part 

 of its structure by the shoulder-blades, which pro- 

 trude at nearly right angles to the axis of the body; 

 and as the animal's body is greatly narrowed toward 

 the buttocks it follows that on a front view of the 

 animal, the observer does not see the hinder quar- 

 ters at all. The legs are comparatively slender and 

 nearly of equal length; the hoofs are of dainty shape. 

 A naked callosity, like that of the Camel, covers the 

 knees of the fore-legs and the hock-joints of the 

 hind-legs. The hide is very thick and its hairy cov- 

 ering is uniform throughout, except upon the callous 

 pads just mentioned, the crest of the neck and the 

 tuft of the tail. A faded sandy -yellow forms the 

 ground-color, darkening on the back, and merging 

 into a whitish hue on the under part. It is marked 

 by rather large irregularly shaped russet-brown spots 

 of varying shades, which are so close together as to 

 give the light ground an appearance resembling a 

 network. On the neck and legs the spots are smaller 

 than on the remainder of the body. The abdomen 

 and the inner surfaces of the limbs are free from 

 spots. The mane is of a pale tint and banded with 

 brown; the ears are white in front and at the base, 

 and brownish behind, and the hair-tuft is of a deep 

 black tint. 



The Distribution The present range of the Giraffe ex- 

 of Existing tends in a wide curve over the east- 

 Giraffes. ern half of Africa, from about the 

 sixteenth parallel of north latitude to the twenty- 

 third parallel of south latitude; in the Kalahari alone 

 it may extend somewhat farther southward, but by 

 no means as far as the Orange River. In the whole 

 of the Congo region the Giraffe seems to be absent, 

 being also unknown in Upper and Lower Guinea and 

 the country further to the interior. In former times 

 its range extended to the coasts of the Atlantic 

 ocean in southwestern Africa. It was exterminated, 

 however, all along the coast more than a generation 

 ago. 



In its native woods the Giraffe certainly produces 

 a different impression from that made by it when con- 

 fined within the narrow enclosure of a zoological gar- 

 den. The curious but frequent correspondence of the 

 shape and general appearance of an animal with the 

 other natural objects of the locality in which it lives, 

 is also seen in this case. Gordon Cumming says: 

 "When a herd of Giraffes is seen dispersed in a 

 grove of the picturesque, umbrella-shaped mimosas, 

 which adorn their native plains, and on the topmost 

 branches of which their immense height enables 

 them to browse, the observer would be really defi- 

 cient in appreciation of natural beauty, if he failed 

 to find the sight a very attractive one." The Giraffe 

 is frequently encountered in stretches of country 

 abounding in old, half-decayed, weather-beaten trees, 

 the branches of which sometimes, owing to the moss 

 covering them, strikingly resemble the long necks 

 of Giraffes. The above-mentioned sportsman says: 

 " I was often in doubt as to the presence of a whole 

 troop of Giraffes, until I had recourse to my spy- 

 glass. Even my half-savage companions . had to 

 acknowledge that their keen, experienced eyes were 

 deceived sometimes; either they mistook those 

 weather-beaten trunks for Giraffes, or else they con- 

 founded the real Giraffes with the old trees." 

 Habits and Mode Giraffes are most often seen in groups 

 of Life of of from six to eight. Where they 

 Giraffes. are undisturbed, however, they fre- 

 quently congregate in greater numbers. Cumming 

 mentions herds of thirty and forty, but believes six- 

 teen to be the average number. 



All the movements of the Giraffe are curious. It 

 looks best when proceeding at a quiet walk, as it 

 then presents a dignified and graceful appearance. 

 Its usual gait is a slow, measured amble, and both 

 legs of one side move simultaneously, after the man- 

 ner of a pacing Horse. Its running gait is a. remark- 

 ably uncouth, halting and ponderous gallop rendered 

 ludicrous by the striking disproportion between its 

 height in front and that behind, as well as between 

 its height and length. Still, as every individual leap 

 is very long, the animal is enabled to traverse dis- 

 tances at a very rapid rate. The great size and 

 weight of the fore part of the body render it impos- 

 sible for the animal to clear the ground of its fore 

 feet by mere muscular strength. It is therefore nec- 

 essary for it to arch backward its long neck and 

 thus shift the centre of gravity of the body farther 

 toward its hind quarters, in order to make it pos- 

 sible for the animal to raise its fore quarters from the 

 earth and leap. The Giraffe leaps without bending 

 the fore-legs, lifting them stiffly, with a simultaneous 

 movement of the neck; then follows the springing 

 motion of the hind legs, attended by another move- 

 ment of the neck. Thus as Lichtenstein has it, "the 

 neck of a leaping Giraffe moves steadily, swinging 



