The Giraffe. 165 
The head is the most beautiful part of the animal : it 
is small, ami the eyes are large, brilliant, and very full. 
Between the eyes, and above the nose, is a swelling very 
prominent and well-defined. This prominence is not a 
fleshy excrescence, but an enlargement of the bony sub- 
stance ; and it seems to be similar to the two little lumps, 
or horns, with which the top of the head is armed, and 
which, being several inches in length, spring on each 
side of the head, just above the ears, and are terminated 
by a thick tuft of stiff upright hairs. The neck is re- 
markably elongated, and it is furnished with a very 
short, stiff mane, which stands out erect from the skin. 
The height of a full-grown Giraife in a wild state is said 
to be seventeen or eighteen feet, measuring from the 
hoofs to the tip of the ears ; but none of those in England 
exceed fourteen feet. At first sight, the fore legs appear 
much longer than the hind ones ; but the fact is, that 
the legs are of the same length, and it is only the height 
of the withers that occasions the apparent disproportion. 
Le Vaillant was the first well-informed naturalist who 
studied the habits of the Giraffe in its wild state. *' If," 
he says, " among the known quadrupeds, precedency be 
allowed to height, the Giraffe without doubt must hold 
the first rank. A male which I have in my collection 
measured, after I killed it, sixteen feet four inches from 
the hoof to the extremity of its horns. I use this ex- 
pression in order to be understood ; for the Giratfe has 
no real horns ; but between its ears, at the upper ex- 
tremity of the head, arise in a perpendicular and 
parallel direction two excrescences from the cranium, 
which without any joint stretch to the height of eight or 
nine inches, terminating in a convex knob, and are sur- 
rounded by a row of strong straight hair, which over- 
tops them by several lines. The female is generally 
lower than the male In consequence of the 
number of these animals which I killed, or had an op- 
portunity of seeing, I may establish as a certain rule 
that the males are generally fifteen or sixteen feet in 
height, and the females from thirteen to fourteen feet." 
The colour of the Giraife is a light fawn, marked with 
spots only a few shades darker. The legs are very 
