Is the Giraffe provided with more than Two Horns ? 17 



with the specimen — the third horn was equally well marked 

 and separated by maceration. 



9. Lastly, I adduce additional conclusive evidence from Dr. 

 George Jaeger's Bemerhungen uber die Homer und Epiphyseal, 

 etc., as recorded in the twenty-sixth volume of the Acta already 

 referred to ; and I beg to call particular attention to this extract, 

 which I translate from a footnote appended to the memoir in 

 question ; the italics are mine. The author says : " In the 

 skull of a young male in the collection at Munich, whose horns 

 are scarcely two inches long, and likewise separated, there is, 

 in the place of the third central horn, a rather strongly-marked 

 elevation of the frontal bone, but no trace of an epiphysis. In 

 the skull (nineteen inches long) of a male received a short time 

 ago from the north of Africa, through Dr. Heuglin, which skull 

 we believe to be mature, the suture of the hind horns is still 

 perceptible, but the serrated borders are almost firmly united 

 to the frontal and parietal bones. The mesial horn, however, is 

 still quite separated* by the epiphysial cartilage from the frontal 

 and nasal bones, whose sutures are not yet obliterated, as also 

 obtains in the other cranial bones. The anterior margin of the 

 central horn-bone projects about one inch over the posterior 

 limit of the nasal bone. From thence the anterior part of the 

 horn rises to the tip, forming a very gradual slope, while the 

 posterior inclination is comparatively steep and short. It 

 results from this that the central horn unites with the bones 

 much later than the hinder horns, which are common to both 

 sexes." 



After such evidence, it is scarcely reasonable to regard the 

 point under consideration as still an open question. Had 

 Professor Owen chanced to have examined the crania of younger 

 males, he would undoubtedly have confirmed Eiippell and 

 Cuvier in all essential particulars. The old skull at Frank- 

 fort, the skeleton at Dublin, and the cranium in the Hunterian 

 collection, all seem at first sight to lend their support to his 

 view, because the synchondrosial ossification has in all of these 

 cases firmly welded the third horn to the subjacent fronto- 

 nasal eminence ; but even in some of these specimens a minute 

 inspection indicates at the margins the original distinctness 

 of the several osseous elements. The skull at Munich repre- 

 sents an example where the intervening fibro- cartilage has not 

 yet commenced ossification, although it appears to be just on 

 the point of doing so. The crania of young males preserved at 

 Tubingen and Liverpool show the separable but distinctly- 

 osseous third horn in a less completely developed condition; 

 and the three young male giraffes dissected by myself seve-^ 

 rally displayed yet earlier stages, where the periosteal aponeu- 

 rotic matrix in which the third horn would have been developed 

 VOL. II. — no. i. c 



