LOCAL VARIATION IN THE GIRAFFE. 
By R&R. LyDEKKER. 
lees many years 1t has been known to naturalists and sportsmen that giraffes from 
different parts of Africa display considerable variation as regards markings, colour, 
and the degree of development of the median horn on the forehead, which may indeed 
be practically absent; and distinct specific or subspecific names have been from time 
to time assigned to these local forms. Recently, as hitherto unexplored districts of the 
Dark Continent have been opened up, and facilities for transporting the skins and bones 
of large animals from the interior have increased, much fresh information with regard 
to these local variations has come to hand, and attempts have been made by several 
distinguished naturalists to put our knowledge of the subject on something lke a 
satisfactory footing. Hitherto, however, there has been one great difficulty, namely, the 
jack of a sufficiency of well-preserved specimens, of which the locality is ascertained, 
for comparison. Nor is this a matter for wonder, since the transport of such bulky 
aninals, whether alive or dead, imvolves much difficulty and expense, and even when 
skins are brought to Hurope few museums have either the means or the space to 
mount and exhibit them in a manner to display their mutual resemblances or differences 
to the best advantage. 
During the past twelve months or so naturalists in this country have, however, 
been afforded exceptional and hitherto unprecedented opportunities of instituting com- 
parisons of this nature. The collection of the British Museum, for instance, which 
previously contained mounted heads and necks of three very distinct forms of giraffe, 
respectively from the Lake Rudolf district, Mount Elgon, and the Kalahari Desert, has 
been enriched by two complete mounted specimens from British Hast Africa—the one 
the gift of Mr. Walter Rothschild, and the other of Captain Powell Cotton. There 
is also a mounted male from Angola in Mr. Rothschild’s private museum at Tring. 
Of living specimens, the Zoological Society's Gardens in the Regent’s Park contain a 
handsome pair of immature giraffes from Kordofan, in addition to the older female 
from South Africa which has been in the collection for some years. Then, again, last 
winter the Duke of Bedford had a trio of these animals—a male and two females 
living at Woburn. ‘The females were still flourishing when these lines were written, 
but the bull unfortunately died in July, when his head and neck was presented to the 
British Museum, where it will in due course be exhibited. All three specimens, as I 
am informed by Mr. Carl Hagenbeck, by whom they were imported, came from the 
Kigyptian Sudan. Another bull, reputedly from Abyssinia, which I have not yet seen, 
has just been received at Woburn. 
With this unrivalled series of specimens in the country, if occurred to me that it 
would be most inportant to have accurate coloured sketches made of as many of 
them as possible; firstly, because we should then have a permanent record of their 
colours and markings, and, secondly, because without such sketches it was utterly 
impossible to make accurate comparisons between the specimens at Woburn Abbey and 
those in the Regent’s Park, or between either of these and the stuffed examples in 
the British Museum. When the matter was brought to the notice of the owner of 
the Woburn specimens, his Grace was good enough to see it in the same lght, with 
the result that I am enabled to illustrate the present article in a manner that would 
not otherwise haye been practicable. 
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