1907.] 



COLOUR-STRIPING ON THE FACE OF GIRAFFES. 



121 



to the integument, and in the related direction and convergence 

 of the hairs in definite bands or hair streams. An examination 

 of the adult Giraffe establishes the truth of this view. I visited 

 the Giraffe-house at the Society's Gardens in order to examine 

 the father of the foetal specimen in which I had observed this 

 colour-striping. The father is a Kordofan specimen, and there 

 is also in the Giraffe-house a female Kordofan Giraffe. I was 

 not a little surprised to find very strongly-marked colour-striping 

 over the eyes of both these Giraffes, especially well-marked in 

 the female. Portions of the muzzle are also banded, and between 

 the eye and the angle of the mouth are developed from four to six 



Text-fig. 44. 



Colovir-stripiug on the face of Giraffa camelopardalis cottoni from Mt. Elgon, 

 Uganda. This specimen shows a horn-like exostosis over the right eye. Drawn 

 from a specimen in the British Museum. 



strongly-marked horizontal colour-bands which are not present in 

 the fcetus (see text-figs. 42 & 43). I found that when the eye was 

 shut and the skin above the eye stretched, the strongly-marked 

 dark and light bands disappeared giving place to an irregularly 

 blotched appearance*, which immediately resolved itself into 

 alternate dark and light bands when the eye was opened and the 



* It seemed to me that there were in this region definite tracts in which the 

 pigmentation of the hair was pale, and others in which it was dark, but exact 

 observation was, I found, impossible in the living animal. 



