130 DR. P. CHALMERS MITCHELL ON [Mar. 3, 



examined on May 5th last, there was no trace of this Peyer's 

 patch, which may therefore be a charactei' of full maturity. Both 

 specimens have been sent to the Royal College of Surgeons. 



The following papers were read : — 



1. On a young Female Kordofan Giraffe. By P. Chalmers 

 Mitchell, M.A., D.Sc, LL.D., F.R.S., Secretary to the 

 Society. 



[Received February 17, 1908.] 

 (Text-figures 18-20.) 



The female of the pair of Kordofan Giraffes [Giraffa camelo- 

 pardalis antiquormn) presented to the Society by Col. B. Mahon, 

 F.Z.S., in 1902, gave birth to a female calf on Sept. 20th, 1907. 

 Thei-e are so many interesting differences in the coloration of 

 Giraffes, which have been employed by Mr. Lydekker (P. Z. S. 1904, 

 p. 202) in his valuable attempt to discriminate subspecies, that I 

 think it is worth while to publish some notes and figures on a 

 young form, the parentage of which is known, and which seems 

 to have a good prospect of reaching maturity in the Society's 

 Gardens. The drawings from which text-figs. 19 & 20 have been 

 reproduced were made when the Giraffe was about eight weeks 

 old, being the work of a very careful artist, Mr. Goodchild, who 

 had already made similar drawings of the young Nigerian Giraffe, 

 reproduced with some notes I prepared in the ' Proceedings' of the 

 Society (P.Z. S. 1905, p. 244). 



A photograph taken by Mr. "W. P. Dando, F.Z.S., when the 

 voung Gii-affe was a few days old, is reproduced in text-fig. 18. 

 For the general proportions of the body it is intei-esting to compare 

 it with the figure of a Giraffe fcetus published by Mr. Beddard 

 (P. Z. S. 1906, p. 626, text-fig. 107) and with the photograph of the 

 young female Nigerian Giraffe about a year old published in my 

 own paper (P. Z. S. 1905, text-fig. 50). The neck is relatively 

 longer in the new-born calf than in the fcetus, but not so long in 

 proportion as in the year-old specimen, although in the latter it 

 had not nearly attained the excessive propoi'tions of the adult. 

 The long neck of the Giraffe, therefore, is a character that appeai-s 

 late in ontogeny, as, no doubt, it appeared late in phylogeny. 



The frontal horns are well-formed, divergent, large, and covered 

 at the extremities with very long tufts of hair. Here, however, 

 is an instance where phylogeny and ontogeny cannot be regai-ded as 

 parallel. It is difiicvdt to suppose that the horn-shaped skin 

 protuberance was developed in the past history of Giraffes before 

 the bony core, and yet at birth the core was veiy much shorter 

 than the skin protuberance with its tuft of hair, so that the 

 "horns" could lie almost flat against the head. 



