38 
THE GIRAFFE’S OBITUARY. 
The winter of the year 1892, like the days of 
pestilence before the walls of Troy, was fatal both 
to man and beast. Even the carefully tended inmates 
of the Zoological Society’s Gardens did not escape ; 
and as the new year opened with the death within a 
week of “Sally,” most human and most intelligent of 
apes, and of her neighbour “Tim,” the silver gibbon, 
who was almost as great a favourite of the London 
public as the educated chimpanzee, so the spring saw 
the death of the two beautiful giraffes, the sole sur- 
vivors left in the collection. The experience which 
the Society has had in maintaining its stock of these 
interesting creatures has not, however, been altogether 
discouraging. Since the first four specimens were 
brought to England in 1836, no less than seventeen 
fawns have been born in the Gardens, and many of 
these lived to grow up. But the stock gradually 
diminished, until in 1866 two were burnt to death in 
their stable, and a third died of old age, leaving only 
the pair now lost. 
The time of their death, unfortunately, coincide 
