330 CASSELL'S POPULAR NATURAL HISTORY. 



<;ir<u;'<i has the following characters : Lip not grooved, entirely covered with hair, much pro- 

 duced before the nostril ; tongue very extensile ; neck very long ; body short ; hinder legs short ; 

 false hoof none ; tail elongate, with a tuft of thick hair at the end. The following is the only 

 species : 



THE GIRAFFE* 



AiliDh the variations of auimal structure we may perceive the same laws of analogy connecting 

 the whole into one series, and assimilating them all to one common standard. The same organ, how- 

 ever modified in its shape and size, however stunted in one or developed in another, is always found 

 in, its appropriate place, and retains the same connections with adjacent organs, whether we seek it in 

 the carnivorous or herbivorous quadruped ; in the inhabitant of the laud or the water ; in the 

 denizen of the frigid or of the torrid zone ; or in animals of the most diminutive or the most 



o y 



colossal stature. 



As an example, we may take the vertebrae of the neck. It is a universal law, that this part ot 

 the spinal column shall, in every animal of the class mammalia, consist of neither more nor less than 

 seven vertebrae. Whatever be the length or the shortness of the neck, whether it be compressed into 

 a small space, as in the elephant and the mole; whether it be lengthened to allow the head to reach 

 the ground, as in the horse, or the ox ; or whether it be excessively prolonged, as in the giraffe ; still 

 this same constant number is preserved in the vertebrae, which it contains. When the neck is long, 

 each individual vertebra must necessarily be lengthened in the same proportion ; and thus, in the 

 present instance, the vertebrae of the neck consist of seven very long tubes, joined together, endwise, 

 with scarcely any development of spinous processes, lest they should impede the bending of the neck. 

 A man who looks at the skeleton of a giraffe for the first time, and without previous knowledge of its 

 structure, must be struck at finding that the towering neck consists of exactly the same amount of 

 bones that form his own ; and yet such is the fact. The skull is light and thin. The horns are con- 

 sidered by Dr. Eiippell who, during his travels in Northern Africa, obtained in Nubia and Kordofan 

 three specimens, two males and one female as constituting the principal generic character, they being 

 formed by distinct bones, united to the frontal and parietal bones by a very obvious suture, and ex- 

 hibiting throughout the same structure as the other bones. In both sexes, he observes, one of these 

 abnormal bones is situated on each branch of the coronal suture, aaul the male possesses an additional 

 one, placed more anteriorly, and occupying the middle of the frontal suture. 



The giraffe wants the receptacle for water which the camel and dromedary possess. The nostrils 

 ai-e provided with cutaneous sphincter muscles, and can be shut at will, like the eyes. Oven supposes 

 that the object of this mechanism is, when the desert storms arise, to keep out the sand. The horny 

 hoofs are divided, and the two small lateral toes, generally seen in true ruminants, are wanting. 



So remarkable is the tongue of the giraffe, that Sir Everard Home prepared a " Memoir" upon 

 it, after an examination of unprecedented minuteness. According to that eminent physiologist, this 

 member is to be considered as a congeries of muscles acting on one another, and, in this respect, differing 

 from muscles applied to bones and other solid substances ; and having, indeed, so many peculiarities as 

 to give it a claim to be regarded separately from the tongues of other animals, and as a construction 

 in which there is a greater variety of actions than is to be met with in others. It not only performs 

 the office 'of the organ of taste, but it has, besides, nearly all the powers of the elephant's proboscis, 

 though not possessed of the same strength. 



They differ, indeed, in one being an elongation of the organ of smell, the other of the organ of 

 taste. The proboscis is restrained from elongation in extent beyond one inch, by means of the carti- 

 laginous tubes it contains ; but the giraffe's tongue, which when extended after death is seventeen 

 inches long, can, in the living body, be so diminished in size as to be inclosed within the animal's 

 mouth. For this alteration in bulk, some peculiar mechanism is required ; since a muscle, whether 

 contracted or relaxed, occupies exactly the same space. The chameleon, it is true, has the power of 

 darting the point of its tongue to the extent of twelve inches, and catching a fly at that distance ; but 



G. Cairelopardalis; Cervus Camelo|-ardalis : Linnaeus. C. Capensis : Geoffrey, Ogilhy. fcuntlopardalls Girafl'a 

 a Simdevall. . Giraffa Camelopardalis : Brisson. Camelopardalis Girafa: Gnulin. 



