GROUSE.
The name Grouse is supposed to come from gorse—furze or heath—and is applied to many game birds in the family Tetraonidae.
The great majority of Grouse belong to the northern part of America, but in England the Grouse may be said to have had an effect upon history, as parliament used always to rise when the season for shooting Grouse arrived!
The red Grouse is indigenous to Great Britain, but is represented in other northern countries by the Willow Grouse, which assumes a protective white color in winter, except that the tail remains black.
The Ruffled Grouse, or pheasant, has caused much dispute in reference to how it produces the drumming sound which can be heard at a long distance, and which musical exercise is no doubt intended as a noisy courtship in wooing his mate.
The distinctive name, “Ruffled,” comes from the ruff of dark feathers, with iridescent green and purple tints which surrounds the neck. This bird has a slight crest and a beautifully barred tail. Its note is a hen-like cluck. No bird has handsomer eyes, with their deep expanding pupils and golden brown iris.
In a beautiful ravine—which was carpeted with green moss a foot deep and shaded by evergreen trees hung in soft gray mosses—on an uninhabited island in northern Lake Superior, I once saw some Canada Grouse so tame that it appeared as if they might easily be taken in one’s hands. The parent birds were on one side of the trail, the young ones in a tree on the other side. All kept quite still for me to look at them, only the young ones lifted their wings slightly, as if wishing to fly across to their parents, who seemed to have an expression as of astonishment at seeing so strange a sight as a human being in their unfrequented solitudes. The gentlemen of our camping party declared that these Grouse were so tame it would seem a crime to shoot them.
THE GIRAFFE.
(Camelopardalis giraffa.)
Should a traveler returning from a far country describe a wonderful animal, with the head and body of a horse, neck and shoulders of a camel, ears of an ox, the tail of an ass, the legs of an antelope, and the coloring and marking of a panther, he would be believed with difficulty, and yet this combination very fairly describes the curious and interesting animal known to us as the Giraffe.
This name is a corruption of the Arabian serafe, the lovely one, and while a single animal, away from its natural surroundings, may not seem to merit the appellation, in its native woods it produces a very different impression.
The Giraffe is found in a wide curve, extending over the eastern half of Africa from Ethiopia as far south as the confines of Cape Colony. Within this area it frequents the sandy, desert-like portions where small trees and shrubs abound.
Hunters and explorers describe with enthusiasm the appearance of the herds of Giraffe, which are sometimes in groups of six or eight, but more frequently found in larger numbers, often as many as thirty or forty being together, while one traveler in the Soudan counted on one occasion seventy-three, and at other times one hundred and three and over one hundred and fifty in one herd.
Gordon Cumming tells us that “when a herd of Giraffes is seen dispersed in a grove of the picturesque, umbrella-shaped mimosas, which adorn their native plains, and on the topmost branches of which their immense height enables them to browse, the observer would really be deficient in appreciation of natural beauty if he failed to find the sight a very attractive one.”
The Giraffe is curiously like the natural objects of the locality in which he lives. He is found in stretches of country where half decayed, weather beaten, moss covered trees resemble the long necks of the animal; so much so that Cumming says he was often in doubt as to the presence of a whole troop of Giraffe until he had used his spyglass, and he adds: “Even my half-savage companions had to acknowledge that their keen, experienced eyes were deceived sometimes; either they mistook those weather beaten trunks for Giraffes, or else they confounded the real Giraffes with the old trees.”
Though found in wooded sand belts which are waterless a portion of the year, the animal of necessity avoids the tall, dense forests, for its food is chiefly the tender leaves and buds of low-growing trees, especially the leaves of the mimosa and of the prickly acacia.
These trees are seldom more than twelve or fifteen feet in height, and with its long legs and neck the Giraffe can easily reach the appetizing twigs and leaves on the broad flat top of the tree. Moving from one side to another, as if the tree were a table spread for its use, it throws out its long snake-like tongue, which it can manipulate with great dexterity and which it uses as an elephant does its trunk. When we remember that the largest animals are sometimes eighteen feet in height, and that the tongue is seventeen or eighteen inches in length, we can see how easily the Giraffe can take its breakfast, while the tree that furnishes it serves also as a screen or shield to conceal it from its enemies.
From the fact that the giraffe will abide in localities which are waterless for months at a time, it has been supposed that water was not necessary for its comfort. This is far from the truth, and it has frequently been seen to drink; its appearance when drinking is most peculiar, and one who has witnessed the curious operation tells us that although the animal’s neck is so long, it can not reach the water without straddling its legs wide apart. This it does by placing one foot forward and the other as far back as possible, increasing the distance between them by a series of little jerks, and sometimes they sprawl their legs out sideways in a similar manner.
GIRAFFE.
(Camelopardalis giraffa.)
It is at the watering place that the lion lies in concealment waiting for the Giraffe to appear. Should it remain unconscious of the lion’s presence, the victory is to the lion, but in the open the Giraffe has an equal chance with the “king of beasts,” for it can defend itself valiantly and successfully with vigorous blows from its powerful limbs. The small horns are not used as a means of defense; they are covered with skin, and at birth the bones are separate, becoming attached to the skull at a later period, while the third small horn, especially observable in the male, is really no horn at all but only a thickening of the bone at that point.
The head of a Giraffe is really a thing of beauty. On account of the delicate contour of the muzzle the head appears longer than it really is. The nostrils can be opened and closed at will, making it possible to avoid injury from the sand storms which sometimes prevail. The eyes are the largest for the size of the head of any animal and are wonderfully gentle, lustrous and beautiful. They are also capable of some lateral projection so that to a degree the animal can see behind it without turning its head.
Notwithstanding the extreme length of the neck of the Giraffe it contains but seven bones, the same number as man.
Its sloping back has led some people to suppose that the legs were uneven in length; this is an error, as the legs are about the same length and the feet have delicate, beautifully shaped, divided hoofs.
The tail of the animal is long and finished with a generous tuft of hair with which it relieves itself of the seroot flies and other stinging insects which otherwise would become unbearable.
Like the American bison the Giraffe is in danger of extermination. It originally had a larger range but has been killed in great numbers. The temptation to hunt the animal is not to be resisted, as the hide of the bull brings from twenty to twenty-five dollars, the flesh is very fine eating and the other parts of the body can be put to various uses; the Arabs use the tendons of the legs for sewing leather, the tail-tufts are used for fly brushes and the solid leg bones are in England made into buttons and other bone articles.
The Giraffe is difficult to approach for it is extremely wary, and will place sentinels to give the herd warning of approaching danger. It is a rapid runner, although its gait is shambling and peculiar owing to the fact that it moves like a pacing horse, the fore and hind legs of the same side moving together.
It is usually hunted on horseback and the animal must be pressed from the moment he starts; “it is the speed that tells against him, and the spurs must be at work at the commencement of the hunt and the horse pressed along at his best pace; it must be a race at top speed from the very start, for should the Giraffe be allowed the slightest advantage for the first five minutes the race will be against the horse.”
Europeans and natives alike are fascinated with Giraffe hunting, though few fail to be struck with the pathetic and half-reproachful expression of a fallen animal and few hearts are so hardened as to feel no compunction at “destroying one of the noblest specimens of nature’s handiwork.”
Mr. Selous, after hunting one day, in recounting his experiences says: “Even in the ardor of the chase it struck me as a glorious sight to see those huge beasts dashing along in front, clattering over the stones or bursting a passage through opposing bushes, their long, graceful necks stretched forward, sometimes bent almost to the earth to avoid horizontal branches, and their bushy black tails twisted over their backs. And how easily and with what little exertion they seemed to get over the ground, with that long, sweeping stride of theirs!”
The skin of the Giraffe is in many parts so thick that a bullet will not pierce it, and the surest method of hunting it is that pursued by some of the Arabs of Abyssinia who run it down while galloping at full speed and with their broadswords cut the tendons of its legs, thus completely disabling it. Although the natives love to hunt the animal they love still more to own a living one and their heads may often be seen peering over the inclosure in the native villages.
In 1836 four Giraffes were successfully taken to the zoölogical gardens at Regent’s Park, London. From this time they became somewhat common in menageries so that many people have seen the living animal, but all view it with curiosity as did the old Romans in the time of Julius Cæsar, when individuals were brought to Rome on the occasion of the games. And it is not strange that at a later date the picture of this curious and then unknown animal, found on Egyptian monuments, were pronounced “a dream fancy of an unbridled artistic imagination.”
John Ainslie.