150 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



hair, render it probable that it is a distinct species ; and 

 although no reason is assigned for the name of Musk-deer, 

 that being the designation of the natives, render it proba- 

 ble that it is impregnated with a musky smell. The skull 

 designated as Cervus Moschatus, by M. de Blainville, may 

 belong to this species. 



The Giraffa. (Camelopardalis Giraffa.) 



We are now to consider an animal of so extraordinary a 

 form and lofty stature, that even the stuffed spoils, the al- 

 most shapeless representative of the living creature, produce 

 upon the eye of the beholder a mixed effect of awe and 

 astonishment. Our imagination is involuntarily led back 

 to the early epochs of the world, when colossal beings peo- 

 pled the earth, and were the undisputed possessors of every 

 region : we fancy ourselves in the presence of one of the 

 survivors of the great diluvian catastrophe, when the Mas- 

 todon, the Megatherium, and, perhaps, its own congeners, 

 were swept away, to leave this one species, among a few 

 others, to attest what were the forms of a primitive animated 

 nature., The Giraffa stands isolated among the ruminating 

 animals in family, genus, and even in species ; its charac- 

 ters offer a mixture of several genera, among which the 

 quinary system may select whether to class it with Uliger 

 among Cameline, or with other naturalists among Cervine 

 or Antilopine animals. By the length of the neck, the cal- 

 losities on the sternum and knees, and by the want of 

 spurious hoofs, it assimilates with camels ; and so obvious 

 is this approximation by the addition of stature, that it 

 did not escape the notice of the ancients : but the peduncu- 

 lated form of the frontal processes, in the shape of horns, 

 recall that character in the Styloceri or Muntjak Deer; 

 while the stiff hairs which crown their summits seem to 

 want only the gluten to cement them into true horns, and 

 embody it, in systematic arrangement, with the Cavicornia. 



