1897.] EXISTING POEMS OF GIBAFFE. 279 



Therefore it will be seen that with the material I have been 

 able to collect, some dozen skins ^ and 13 skulls of both species of 

 all ages, I cannot ghe more than a general outline of colouring. 

 The adult Southern Griraffe has the general effect of a dirty white 

 animal covered with brown blotches, with wider hght spaces 

 between them, the lower legs mottled, and upper face grizzled. 

 The adult Northern Giraffe has clearly detined polygonal patches, 

 the light intervening spaces narrower, the lower legs white and 

 upper face roan. 



The figures of the heads (pp. 280, 281) are faithfully drawn from 

 specimens presented to and now in the British Museum — that of the 

 Three-horned Giraffe from a young bull obtained by Mr. Arthur 

 Neumann a little to the east of the Loroghi Mountains, and that 

 of the Two-horned Giraffe from an animal of about the same age 

 obtained by Mr. H. A. Bryden in the North Kalahari district. It 

 will be seen that the horns of the northern species are longer, more 

 massive, and slope backwards more than those of the southern 

 species. I have never seen the two horns of equal length in either 

 species. 



I need hardly mention the fact that both species of Giraffe have 

 six molariform teeth in each jaw, in common with all the Pecora 

 (excepting the Spring Buck, GazeUa euchore) of South Africa. 

 Dr. Matschie in his recent work on German E. Africa says that 

 there are only five molars in each jaw. This might lead to the idea 

 that the German E. African Giraffe was of a different species, 

 whereas I have shown that it is G. capeniiis, as Dr. Matschie, indeed, 

 has quite clearly stated is his opinion also ; but I think it well to 

 mention this obvious misprint in the only book on the Mammalian 

 fauna of East Africa yet published. 



The skull of the male G. camelopardalis can of course be at 

 once distinguished by the prominent third horn, and the skull of 

 the female of the same species has no unossified space on the side 

 of the face in front of the orbit, whUe there is a vacant space 

 of considerable extent in the skull of the female of G. capensis ; 

 there is no vacant space in the skulls of old males of either species, 

 and, so far as I can discover, no " outer protrusion of the superior 

 spongy bone," as Owen says, but the true outer bones of the face 

 meet and are joined by sutures. The palate of the southern 

 species ends posteriorly in a projecting point in the middle line, 

 while that of the northern form is rather narrower and rounded ; 

 the space between the pterygoid and the back of the upper jaw or 

 last molar is also wider in the southern form, and the skull 

 generally rather broader in proportion to its length ; the distance 

 from the back of the palate to the foramen magnum is slightly 

 greater and the base of the brain-case is not so much bent down : 

 thus in the northern form the angle formed by the basifacial and 

 basicranial portions of the skull is more acute ; this character is 

 more marked in comparing skulls of moderately young animals. 



''■ Since writing the above Messrs. Eowland Ward & Co. have shown me about 

 a dozen scalps and neck-skins of the southern form, and they all show the 

 same characters, though the light intervening spaces vary in width. 



