] 904.] SUBSPECIES OF GIRAFFA CAMELOPARDALIS. 225 



A large and very dark- coloured Girafle, without posterior 

 (occipital) horns (text-fig. 36), displaying the "blotched type" of 

 coloration in the most pronounced form, with the two sexes alike 

 as regards the pattei'n of the spots, but the old bulls much darker 

 than the cows. As regards the distinctive features of the spots, 

 or blotches, it may be observed that the large chocolate-brown, 

 or almost black, body-spots of the old bulls are more or less 

 quadrangulai- in shape, without showing any tendency to split 

 up into stars, and form conspicuous dark blotches upon a tawny 

 ground. This type of coloration is thus the very reverse of the 

 one obtaining in the Nubian G. c. typica, and still more markedly 

 in the Somali G. retictdata, which may be called the " netted 

 tyj^e" and consists of a network of lines on a chestnut or liver- 

 coloured ground. The legs are fully spotted and dark-coloured 

 throughout, and the frontal horn is i-udimentary. 



Text-fia-. 36. 



■\ 



Skvill of male Cape Giraffe. 



It appears, however, that the typical blotched coloration is 

 displayed in its most characteristic foi'm only in the Cape i-epre- 

 sentatives of this race, which is probably now almost or quite 

 exterminated. To this typical i-epresentative of the I'ace belongs 

 the old bull presented by Lord Derby to the British Museum and 

 formerly exhibited to the public, but now relegated to the store 

 series ; it is from this specimen that Plate XVI. has been drawn. 



In the head and neck of a somewhat younger, and therefore 

 lighter-coloured, bull from the North Kalahari, presented to the 

 Museum by Mr. Bryden, there is a decided tendency towards 



Proc. Zool. Soc— 1904, Vol. I. No. XV. 15 



