GIRAFFE CHARACTERISTICS 
prongbuck. The ancestral giraffes had shorter necks and legs 
more nearly of equal length than have their descendants. 
The modern giraffe (family Giraffide) is the tallest of all 
animals, not only in carrying its head in some cases eighteen or 
nineteen feet above the ground, but in the height of its fore legs; 
and the short, deep-chested body slopes on the back rapidly 
down to drooping hindquarters and a cowlike tail. The ex- 
traordinary neck, which has been obtained by the lengthening 
out of the vertebra, not by increasing their number (7), serves 
the animal well by lifting its head high above the thickets and 
grass of the bushy country in which it most often dwells — a 
living conning tower. As it looks and listens for the ever 
possible enemy, it browses the crown of one or another of the 
mimosas whose tablelike tops seem arranged for the purpose, 
or show how often their twigs have been nibbled away, year 
after year. It is curious to watch the long, flexible lips and 
tongue curling around the leaves and tearing them off to be 
munched between the lower front teeth and the horny pad in 
the upper jaw; but still more comical is it to see the beast pick 
a fallen leaf or tuft of grass, for his neck, despite its length, is 
not long enough for that, so that he has to straddle out his legs 
by jerks, like a photographer adjusting the height of his camera 
on its tripod, until he can reach the ground or get his mouth 
down to the surface of water to take a drink; but that is a 
luxury the modern Kalahari exiles, at least, must go without 
for months together. The giraffe’s eyes are very large, dark, 
and liquid, and the expression of its face infantile and gentle; 
but keepers at the ‘‘Zoo”’ say that it is sometimes viciously ill- 
tempered, and can deliver terrific kicks with both fore and hind 
feet, which are shod with heavy hoofs. 
The horns on the head play no part as weapons even in 
the battles of jealousy between the bulls; and probably are 
relics of structures more useful in the short-necked ancestral 
giraffes. With his present build, the animal could hardly 
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