CHAPTER XVI 
THE GIRAFFE AND OKAP, 
THE GIRAFFE 
BY H. A. BRYDEN 
IRAFFES, which are found only in the 
continent of Africa, are the tallest of 
all living creatures. They belong to 
the Ruminants, or Cud-chewers, and naturalists 
are inclined to place them somewhere between 
the Deer Family and the Hollow-horned 
Ruminants, in which latter are to be found 
oxen, buffaloes, and antelopes. Rtitimeyer, the 
Swiss naturalist, once defined them as “a most 
fantastic form of deer,’ which is, perhaps, as 
good a definition of them as one is likely 
to hit upon. Fossil discoveries show that, in 
ages long remote, great giraffe-like creatures, 
some of them bearing horns or antlers, roamed 
widely in the south of Europe, Persia, India 
and even China. 
Of living giraffes, two species have thus 
far been identified, — the SOUTHERN or CAPE 
GIRAFFE, with a range extending from Bechua- 
naland and the Transvaal to British East 
Africa and the Soudan; and the NUBIAN or 
NORTHERN GIRAFFE, found chiefly in East 
Africa, Somaliland, and the country between 
Abyssinia and the Nile. The southern giraffe, 
which, from its recent appearance in the Gar- 
dens of the Zoological Society, is now the more 
familiar of the two animals, has a creamy or 
yellowish-white ground-colour, marked by 
irregular blotches, which vary in colour, in animals of different ages, from lemon-fawn to orange- 
tawny, and in older specimens to a very dark chestnut. Old bulls and occasionally old cows 
grow extremely dark with age, and at a distance appear almost black upon the back and shoulders. 
The northern giraffe is widely different, the coloration being usually a rich red-chestnut, 
darker with age, separated by a fine network of white lines, symmetrically arranged in 
polygonal patterns. At no great distance this giraffe, instead of having the blotchy or dappled 
appearance of the southern giraffe, looks almost entirely chestnut in colour, Again, the 
southern giraffe has only two horns, while the northern species usually develops a third, 
growing from the centre of the forehead. These horns, which are covered with hair in both 
species, and tufted black at the tips, are, in the youthful days of the animal, actually 
separable from the bones of the head. As the animal arrives at maturity, they become firmly 
238 
Photo by Miss E, F. Bech 
SOUTHERN GIRAFFE LYING DOWN 
This giraffe was a present to Queen Victoria ; it only lived fourteen 
days after its arrival 
