The Giraffe 



49: 



the eyes, to a height of from 3 to 5 inches, has often been noticed in adult 

 specimens. All giraffes carry two horns, or false horns, as they may be 

 called, upon the summit of the head. These false horns are bony promi- 

 nences, growing from the skull, and are covered with yellowish brown 

 hair, which at the tips becomes black. In the skulls of young animals 

 these false horns are easily detachable, but, as the animal becomes adult, 

 the prominences are found firmly attached to the rest of the bony frame- 

 work of the head. In the southern form, the curious dome-like bone in 



Fig. 46.— Bull Giraffe (northern form), shot in Boran Galla country. Photographed by Lo 



the centre of the forehead gives some indication of the third horn to be 

 found in the northern form, but it appears never to develop beyond this 

 prominency or to become an actual horn. In the writer's opinion the 

 differences between the northern, southern, and western giraffes are 

 sufficient to constitute sub-species but scarcely species. A new form of 

 giraffe, widely differing in colour from what may be called the Soudan, Cape, 

 and West African varieties, has, within the last few years, been discovered 

 by Major Wood and his friend Captain Ffinch in Somaliland. 1 The skin 



1 This form is quite distinct from the well-known Soudan giraffe, of \ 

 for many years in the Zoological Society's Gardens. It certainly differ: 

 3 S 



stly from the South Afric 



