THE GIRAFFE. 223 



excite in my mind transports of joy almost akin to madness ? Pain, 

 fatigue, cruel want, uncertainty as to the future, and disgust at the 

 past, all disappeared, all vanished at the sight of my rare prize ; I 

 could not look at it enough. I measured its enormous height, and 

 gazed with astonishment from the instrument of destruction to the 

 animal destroyed by it, I called and recalled my people, one 

 by one ; and though each of them might have been able to do as 

 much, and we had all slaughtered heavier and more dangerous 

 animals, yet I was the first to kill one of this particular kind ; 

 with it I was about to enrich natural history, and, putting an end 

 to fiction, establish the truth." 



At the end of the fifteenth century the giraffe that was in Flo- 

 rence and belonged to Lorenzo di Medici, and the one represented in 

 the frescoes of a villa belonging to the Grand Duke of I'uscany, 

 Poggio Acajano, between Florence and Prato was, we learn/ very 

 familiar with the inhabitants of the city. It lived on the fruits of the 

 country, particularly apples, and when led about used to stretch up 

 its long neck to the first floor of the houses, to implore a meal. 



A giraffe was not again seen in Europe from this date until 1827, 

 when the Pasha of Elgypt presented one to the Sultan, another he 

 sent to Venice, a third to King George, and a fourth to Paris. 

 The consuls of each nation drew lots for the choice, and the 

 French people seem to have got the most satisfaction out of their 

 giraffe ; it was the healthiest, and lived the longest. The account 

 given of the arrival of this creature is amusing, and the fwore 

 created by it is curious reading in 1S85, for the animals 

 are now acclimatized and regulary bred in Europe. The Penny 

 Magdeim for 1832 says : — " The female giraffe brought to France, 

 after passing a winter at Marseilles, in order to accustom 

 her to a still more rigorous climate, was conveyed to the Garden 

 of Plants, in Paris, where she is now in high health and beauty. 

 Her arrival created the greatest satisfaction and enthusiasm. A 

 professor from the garden went to conduct her to the capital, and 

 watch over her welfare during the march. The prefect of Mar- 

 seilles caused the arms of France to be embroidered in silver on her 

 body-cloth, which, with her hood;, was made of black oiled-silk, 

 7 " Library of Entertaining Knowledge." Menageries. 



