500 Great and Small Game of Africa 



country, where sand-storms prevail. The upper lip is long, protruding, 

 and prehensile, and, like the lower lip, is furnished with a dense 

 coating of thick velvety hair, also, as I believe, a further protection against 

 thorns. The skin of the giraffe is thick and tough, especially upon the 

 back and shoulders, where it attains in mature specimens a thickness of 

 about an inch. The tongue, long, pointed, and extremely prehensile, is 

 used as a means of grasping the succulent green leafage of the acacias on 

 which this animal browses. The giraffe is, strangely enough, voiceless. 1 

 One of the most beautiful features of the giraffe are the eyes, which are 

 dark brown, full, soft, and melting, and shaded by long lashes. They are 

 so placed in the head as to afford a very wide range of vision. Save for 

 its speed, which is considerable, its wonderful powers of sight and scent, 

 and the difficulty, extreme remoteness, and often inaccessibility of its 

 various habitats, the giraffe has small power of sheltering or protecting 

 itself against its numerous enemies. It can and does, however, use its feet, 

 and a chopping kick from the fore-foot of this gigantic animal when 

 wounded and brought to bay is highly dangerous and should be carefully 

 avoided by the hunter. The flesh of a fat cow giraffe — not too old — is 

 excellent, tender, well tasted, and resembles young beef, with a game- 

 like flavour or its own. The marrow bones, which are immensely long, 

 are delicious, and are one of the prime bonnes bouches of African hunters. 



The habitat of the giraffe, formerly a very wide one, has been, owing 

 to much persecution, a good deal circumscribed within the last fifty years. 

 In the northern part of the continent it may be yet found in Somaliland, 

 Gallaland, parts of the Soudan, and Senegambia. The young male 

 recently purchased by the Zoological Society was captured at Dakka, in 



1 I have never heard one of these animals make a sound, even when dying. I have questioned 

 many hunters on this point — English, Dutch, and native — and their testimony has always been to the 

 same effect— that the giraffe is voiceless. The Masarwa bushmen of" the Kalahari, who know the habits 

 of these animals better than any other Africans, stoutly maintain that the giraffe is incapable of uttering 



