CHAPTER XVI.
THE GIRAFFE AND OKAPI.
THE GIRAFFE.
BY H. A. BRYDEN.
Giraffes, which are found only in the continent of Africa, are the tallest of all living creatures. They belong to the Ruminants, or Cud-chewers, and naturalists are inclined to place them somewhere between the Deer Family and the Hollow-horned Ruminants, in which latter are to be found oxen, buffaloes, and antelopes. Rütimeyer, the Swiss naturalist, once defined them as "a most fantastic form of deer," which is, perhaps, as good a definition of them as one is likely to hit upon. Fossil discoveries show that, in ages long remote, great giraffe-like creatures, some of them bearing horns or antlers, roamed widely in the south of Europe, Persia, India and even China.
Photo by Miss E. J. Beck.
SOUTHERN GIRAFFE LYING DOWN.