MAMMALIA — CAMELOPARD. 351 



THE GIRAFFE, OR CAMELOPARD.i 



Is one of die tallest, mosi beautiful, and most harmless animals in nature. 

 The enormous disproportion of its legs, (the fore legs being as long again as 

 the hinder ones,) is a great obstacle to the use of its strength. Its motion 

 is waddling and stiff; it can neither fly from its enemies in its free state, 

 nor serve its master in a domestic one. The species is not very numerous, 

 and has always been confined to the central and southern parts of Africa. 

 M. le Vaillant, the first naturalist who had an opportunity of closely 

 examining the giraffe, gives a full and accurate description of it in his 

 Travels. " The giraffe chews the cud, as all horned animals with cloven 

 feet do. Like them, too, it crops the grass ; though seldom, because pas- 

 ture is scarce in the country which it inhabits. Its ordinary food is the leaf 

 of a sort of mimosa, called by the natives Jcaneap, and by the planters kamel 

 doom. The tree being peculiar to the canton, and growing only there, this 

 may be the reason why it takes up its abode in it, and why it is not seen in 

 those regions of the south of Africa where the tree does not grow. This, 

 however, is but a vague conjecture, and which the reports of the ancients 

 seem to contradict. 



" Its head is unquestionably the most beautiful part of its body. Its mouth 

 is small; its eyes large and animated. Between the eyes, and above the 

 nose, it has a very distinct and prominent tubercle. This is not a fleshy 



' Ca.melopardalis ^rajfa, Desm. This is the only animal of the genus. It has eight 

 lower and no upper incisors ; no canines ; six upper and six lower molars on each side. 

 Head very long, with a bony tubercle on the forehead, and two osseous peduncles covered 

 with skin, and hairy, terminated by a tuft of bristles ; upper lip entire ; no lachrymal 

 sinuses ; ears pointed ; tongue rough, with corneous papillae ; eyes large ; neck extremely 

 long ; withers much elevated ; legs slender; a callosity on the sternum ; four mammae. 



