io6 THE MAMMALS OF ETHIOPIAN AFRICA 



coloration, white legs, and a frontal horn is adapted to local conditions in the 

 north of Africa, while one in which the coloration is blotched, the legs are tawny 

 and spotted, and the forehead hornless is suited to the southern districts of the 

 continent. 



A step towards the solution of the problem is afforded by photographs 

 taken in East Africa, which show that the pattern and colour presented by the 

 Somali giraffe are for harmonising with the bush-jungle among which it dwells. 

 As already mentioned, it is also known that the blotched colouring of the southern 

 giraffe assimilates its owner to the chequered shade of the mimosas on which it 

 feeds, and likewise to the trunks of the trees themselves. Again, its paler hue and 

 white legs may assimilate the northern giraffe to the sandy tint and white shimmer 

 of the Nubian Desert ; while the black spots of the Baringo race may harmonise 

 with the darker and richer colouring of a tropical East African forest. 



Giraffes depend chiefly upon sight and hearing to warn them of danger ; their 

 towering height enabling them to overlook a wide extent of country. Unlike the 

 majority of mammals, giraffes when running, instead of moving one fore-leg and 

 the opposite hind-leg together, move the fore and hind legs of the same side 

 simultaneously ; this causes a rolling motion, accompanied by a swaying from side 

 to side of the long neck, the tapering and tufted tail being carried bent forwards 

 over the back. Their only active means of defence appears to be kicking with the 

 fore-legs. Giraffes are definitely known to attain a height of 18 feet to the crown 

 of the head, and there are reports that some old bulls in East Africa tower to 

 20 feet. 



Except in certain parts of eastern and central Africa, and perhaps in a few 

 localities elsewhere, giraffes are becoming very rare, and restricted to isolated and 

 undisturbed localities. In former days they were to be found in considerable 

 numbers over a large tract of country south of the Zambesi, and they were also 

 common in some parts of the Kalahari Desert, as well as in the sandy regions 

 between the Bawangwato and Lake Ngami, and in the district near the Mabebi, 

 Chobi, and Zambesi Rivers. In some parts of the Botletli Valley, and also in the 

 waterless but wooded sandy districts on the south bank of the Chobi, they were 

 particularly numerous ; they were also to be met with in the vicinity of Linyanti, 

 between the Chobi and the Zambesi, although not nearly so abundantly, but 

 immediately north of the Zambesi they are unknown, although common in many 

 parts of central and East Africa. Giraffes were once common in many parts of 

 Matabililand, whence they appear to have migrated some years before 1881 to the 

 eastward of the river Gwelo, a tributary of the Zambesi, where both banks are of 

 similar character and the stream consists for the greater part of the year of a series 

 of pools quite easy to cross. The chief region in South Africa where they still 

 occur appears to be the parched plains in the north of the Kalahari, where, in the 

 country immediately south of the Botletli River, they probably exist without water 

 for the greater part of the year. 



Water- As mentioned in the preceding chapter, deer are entirely absent 



Chevrotain. £ rom Ethiopian Africa, and the small family of so-called mouse- 

 deer, or chevrotains (Tragulidce), is represented solely by the water-chevrotain 

 (Dorcatherium, or Hyomoschus, aquaticum), whose range extends across the forest- 



