554 



V EliTEBRATA. 



GIRAF1U. 



THE GIRAFFIDvE. 



This family comprises a single genus, GIRAFFE, and a single species, the African Giraffe 

 or Camelopard, Camclopardalis Girafa. This remarkable animal is distinguished from all 

 the other ruminants by several important characteristics. The body is short and supported 

 upon wry long legs; the dorsal line slopes downward toward the rump, the withers being 

 greatly elevated, and from this it was long confidently asserted that the fore-legs were much 

 longer than the hinder pair, although this is not the case. The neck is excessively long, and 

 furnished with a short mane, running down its dorsal line; the head is comparatively small, and 

 the count Dance exceedingly gentle and pleasing in its expression, the eyes being remarkably full 

 and lustrous. The dentition is the same as that of the deer, the upper incisors and the canines in 

 both ja\\> being <juito deficient. The forehead bears a pair of tapering cylindrical bony append- 



, which are covered with a hairy skin like the rest of the head. These are permanent, and 

 might be regarded as the representatives of the processes of the. frontal bone upon which the de- 

 ciduous antlers of the deer arc developed, but they are distinct bones, only united by those of the 

 skull, by a Buturc, and instead of rising exclusively from the frontal bones their broad base coven 

 the coronal sutuiv, so thai they rcsl partly upon the frontal, and partly on the parietal bones. In 

 front of the horns, the frontal and nasal bones are elevated to form a rounded protuberance which 



been described as a third horn by many writers. The feet arc destitute of the accessor] 

 lioofe, which occur in most of the other ruminants except the Camelidae ; and the tail is rather 

 _. and terminated by a tuft of very long and thick hairs. 

 1 he giraffe is the tallest of all ruminants, the males not uncommonly measuring fourteen an<l 



etimea eighteen feet from the top of the head to the ground. The females are usually a ; 



