HARMONIOUS COLORATION 
Andersson 4° 
relates an incident of his experience near Lake 
Ngami, where a noble bull fought heroically against two lions 
while three others looked on. In the late spring a single 
young one is born, and is able to trot by the side of its dam 
within three days. Selous once saw a giraffe defending her 
newly born calf against two leopards which had pounced upon 
it as it lay in the grass; and with such effect, by striking with 
her fore feet, that she drove the leopards off. Once alarmed, 
the giraffe takes to its heels and gets over the ground in a queer 
camel-like gallop, which it requires a good horse to keep up 
with, so that the chase of the camelopard has always been 
among the most exciting and enjoyable of the African hunter’s 
experiences. Every sportsman’s book abounds in such remi- 
niscences, and one of the perils involved is that of being stunned 
by one of the flying stones hurled back from beneath the hoofs 
of the fast-striding quarry. 
The coloration of giraffes is very striking and unlike any 
other animal pattern. The familiar northern kind may be 
described as a chestnut-colored animal, marked by 
a network of fine tawny lines. In the South African 
one, on the contrary, large patches of brown or chestnut are ir- 
regularly distributed over a paler tawny ground color, while the 
under parts, shins, and feet are whitish. There is, however, 
great variation among them in both tint and pattern. 
Coloration. 
As we gaze at this always interesting animal in a menagerie, it seems 
as though nothing in the world could be more conspicuous, yet sportsmen 
have always complained of the difficulty of seeing this game in its native 
wilds. Not only is it that ‘the dappled hide of the giraffe blends harmo- 
niously with the splashes of light and shade formed by the sun glinting 
through the foliage of the trees,” but several writers speak of even the sharp- 
eyed natives mistaking its long and motionless neck and legs for weather- 
beaten tree trunks, which to their astonishment suddenly became very 
much alive. Some of Schillings’s photographs show this well. 
Until a very few years ago it was supposed that the family 
contained no other living members than the giraffes; but in 
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