84 Animal Life 
be characterised by the presence of a well-developed median front horn, coupled with 
the fully-spotted legs and the normal form of the body-spots. Possibly Mr. Rothschild’s 
Angola giraffe may indicate another race, unless indeed it belongs to the one represented 
by the Tervueren specimen. 
In conclusion, my readers may perhaps be interested in the following note in 
connection with the dentition of giraffes which the Editor of “The Zoologist” was 
good enough to publish for me a short time ago :— 
“Tn the course of his memow on the Okapi, published last year in the 
‘Transactions’ of the Zoological Society, Prof. Ray lankester drew attention to the 
circumstance that all the living, and many (Qf not all) of the extinct members of the 
Giraffide, are distinguished from other ruminants by the crowns of the outermost of the 
four pairs of lower front teeth (corresponding to the canines of other mammals) being 
bifid, or bilobed; this bilobed structure having been observed in the Giraffe and Okapi, as 
well as m the extinct Stvatheriwm of India and the Samotherium of Southern Hurope. 
No explanation was at the time given for this departure from the normal structure. 
“Recently I have had an opportunity of watching carefully the mode in which 
a Giraffe plucks the leaves from a bough. The leaves are first grasped by the 
long and extensile tongue, and are then stripped from the bough by being drawn 
between the lower teeth and the front of the palate im such a manner that the 
twigs of the bough itself are left practically uninjured. The lower front teeth act, in 
fact, as a kind of comb in stripping off the leaves; and I think there can be 
little doubt that the broad bilobed crowns of the outer pai of teeth have been 
developed in order to increase the breadth of this ‘comb,’ and at the same time 
to render its comb-like action as efficient as possible. 
“Deer and cattle, when browsing, eat the twigs as well as leaves, and since this 
difference of habit is correlated with a simple lower canine, while there is almost certainly 
some good reason for the bifid crown of that tooth in the Giraffe and its allies, there 
appears to be a strong probability of the truth of the foregomg suggestion. Should it . 
be well founded it will be evident that the Stvatheriwn and other extinct relatives 
of the Giraffe and the Okapi fed in the same manner as those animals.” 
ANIMAL ANECDOTES. 
A NATURALIST gives the following description of 
_ an exciting battle between two 
fut armies ereat armies of ants as witnessed 
; by him in a Californian orange 
grove:—“ Hor some days before the battle I had 
noticed a great restlessness in the colonies of 
ants around two large oak trees. They were in a 
stite of simmering excitement, which came to a 
head one morning, when I observed that, instead 
of going about their work as usual, they were 
inassing in columns. Four columns, each com- 
posed of many thousands of ants, issued from one 
tree, and four similar columns advanced to meet 
them from the tree adjacent. In a few moments 
they met, and then commenced a battle unequalled 
for sheer ferocity. No quarter was given. Ant 
seized ant, and the victory went to the one with 
the stronger jaws. There were charges, flank 
movements, and other manceuyres, for if was 
plainly to be seen that the ants had their officers 
in command, and that occasionally messengers 
were sent from column to column. The ground 
was piled with the slain, and the survivors some- 
times fought on the top of a hill formed of the 
bodies of theic fellows; but the columns generally 
kept their formation until the close of the battle, 
when the victorious army, by sheer weight of 
numbers, threw their opponents into disorder, 
and then began to close in on all sides. The 
weaker army showed not the faintest disposition 
either to retreat or to surrender. Like the old 
Greeks, its members closed their ranks and fought 
doggedly until they were at last overwhelmed and 
exterminated. Then the victors advanced on the 
tree which was lately the home of their enemies, 
annexed it, and established a colony there.” 
