334 
UNGULATES. 
' _ - 
SOUTH AFRICAN GIRAFFE. 
they are not sufficiently so to enable them to reach the water without straddling 
their legs wide apart. In doing this, they sometimes place one foot in front, 
and the other as far back as possible, and then by a series of little jerks widen the 
distance between the two, until they succeed in getting their mouths down to the 
water; sometimes they sprawl their legs out sideways in a similar manner.” A 
giraffe in the latter posture is depicted on the right side of the Plate; this position 
having to be assumed, not only when drinking, but likewise when the animal desires 
to pick up a leaf from the ground, or on the rare occasions when it grazes. 
Writing at a time when giraffes were still abundant in South Africa, Gordon 
Cumming gives the following 
graphic account of their habits and 
appearance. He says that, “ in 
countries unmolested by the in¬ 
trusive foot of man, the giraffe is 
found generally in herds varying 
from twelve to sixteen; but I 
have not unfrequently met with 
thirty, and on one occasion I 
counted forty individuals together; 
this, however, was a chance, and 
sixteen may be reckoned as the 
average number of a herd. These 
herds are composed of giraffes of 
various sizes, from the young one of 
9 or 10 feet in height to the dark 
chestnut-coloured old bull of the 
herd, whose exalted head towers 
above his companions, generally 
attaining a height of upwards of 
18 feet. The females are of lower 
stature, and more delicately formed 
than the males, their height av¬ 
eraging from 16 to 17 feet. 
Some writers have discovered 
ugliness and a want of grace in 
the giraffe, but I consider that 
he is one of the most strikingly 
beautiful animals in the creation; 
and when a herd is seen scattered 
through a grove of the picturesque 
parasol-topped acacias which adorn 
their native plains, and on whose uppermost shoots they are enabled to browse 
through the colossal height with which nature has so admirably endowed them, he 
must indeed be slow of conception who fails to discover both grace and dignity in 
all their movements.” Referring to the admirable protective resemblance of many 
animals to their natural surroundings, the same author goes on to observe that “ in 
