THE GIRAFFE. 215 



In Pliny's account of these animals, lie says tliat as they are 

 more remarkable for the singularity of their appearance than for 

 their fierceness, they have obtained the name of " wild sheep." 

 But this was only an epithet apphed to them to signify the mild- 

 ness of their dispositions. 



They are not, however, perfectly defenceless, but occasionally 

 prove themselves no mean adversaries for even their greatest 

 enemy — the prowling lion. They have tremendously powerful 

 feet, which they can use with remarkable rapidity. Frank Buck- 

 land makes the statement that the kick of a giraffe is the second 

 most powerful thing in nature, the first being the blow of a 

 whale's tail, and the third the pat of a lion's paw. 



In the muzzle and the beautiful structure of their nostrils, the 

 giraffes resemble camels, for they are also not only provided with 

 hair growing from the margins, but with cutaneous sphincter 

 muscles that enable them at will to close the narrow apertures and 

 defend the air-passages and delicate membrane-lining from the 

 injurious effects of the penetrating sand-storms. 



They differ from every other member of the ruminating family 

 in the shape of the mouth, The upper lip, which is unlike that 

 of the camel in not being bifid or cleft, has a prolonged shape and 

 is covered with hair, but has not the elegant and tapering form of 

 the elk. They possess six molar teeth on each side of both jaws, 

 and eight incisors on the lower, but none on the upper one ; their 

 dental formula being in fact identical with that of deer, sheep, 

 goats, oxen, and antelopes. 



The head has the two ears shaped something like those of the 

 common deer, and, moreover, possesses two short bony append- 

 ages or horns, which are not, however, naked, but are completely 

 covered with the skin of the forehead, and have short tufts of 

 black hair or bristles on their summit. These horns, which are 

 common to both sexes, though somewhat larger in the male 

 animal, bear but little resemblance to the horns of the ox or deer 

 tribe ; they are attached partly to the parietal bones, and in the , 

 front of them there is a protuberance which Mr. Spencer Cobbold 

 declares is a third horn. Dr. Kuppel also described the Nubian 

 male giraffes as possessing a third horn occupying the middle of 



