This giraffe was a present to Queen Victoria; it only lived fourteen days after its arrival.
Of living giraffes, two species have thus far been identified,—the Southern or Cape Giraffe, with a range extending from Bechuanaland and the Transvaal to British East Africa and the Soudan; and the Nubian or Northern Giraffe, found chiefly in East Africa, Somaliland, and the country between Abyssinia and the Nile. The southern giraffe, which, from its recent appearance in the Gardens of the Zoological Society, is now the more familiar of the two animals, has a creamy or yellowish-white ground-colour, marked by irregular blotches, which vary in colour, in animals of different ages, from lemon-fawn to orange-tawny, and in older specimens to a very dark chestnut. Old bulls and occasionally old cows grow extremely dark with age, and at a distance appear almost black upon the back and shoulders. The northern giraffe is widely different, the coloration being usually a rich red-chestnut, darker with age, separated by a fine network of white lines, symmetrically arranged in polygonal patterns. At no great distance this giraffe, instead of having the blotchy or dappled appearance of the southern giraffe, looks almost entirely chestnut in colour. Again, the southern giraffe has only two horns, while the northern species usually develops a third, growing from the centre of the forehead. These horns, which are covered with hair in both species, and tufted black at the tips, are, in the youthful days of the animal, actually separable from the bones of the head. As the animal arrives at maturity, they become firmly united to the skull. A third race or sub-species of giraffe has been identified in Western Africa, mainly from the skull and cannon-bones of a specimen shot in 1897 at the junction of the Binue and Niger Rivers; but very little is known about this form. Other varieties or sub-species may yet be discovered in other parts of the Dark Continent. It is lacking in the giraffe's long neck.
The towering height of the giraffe is entirely attributable to the great length of the neck and limbs. A full-grown bull giraffe will certainly measure occasionally as much as 19 feet in height. I measured very carefully a specimen shot by my hunting friend, Mr. W. Dove, in the forests of the North Kalahari, South Africa, which taped 18 feet 11½ inches. A fine cow, shot by myself in the same country, measured 16 feet 10 inches, and there is no reason to suppose that cow giraffes do not easily reach fully 17 feet in height. These animals feed almost entirely upon the leaves of acacia-trees, the foliage of the kameel-doorn, or giraffe-acacia, affording their most favourite food-supply. It is a most beautiful spectacle to see, as I have seen, a large troop of these dappled giants—creatures which, somehow, viewed in the wild state, always seem to me to belong to another epoch—quietly browsing, with upstretched necks and delicate heads, among the branches of the spreading mokala, as the Bechuanas call this tree.
The giraffe's upper lip is long and prehensile, and covered, no doubt as a protection against thorns, with a thick velvety coating of short hair. The tongue is long—some 18 inches in length—and is employed for plucking down the tender leafage on which the giraffe feeds. The eyes of the giraffe are most beautiful—dark brown, shaded by long lashes, and peculiarly tender and melting in expression. Singularly enough, the animal is absolutely mute, and never, even in its death-agonies, utters a sound. The hoofs are large, elongate, nearly 12 inches in length in the case of old bulls, and look like those of gigantic cattle. There are no false hoofs, and the fetlock is round and smooth. The skin of a full-grown giraffe is extraordinarily tough and solid, attaining in the case of old males as much as an inch in thickness. From these animals most of the sjamboks, or colonial whips, in use all over South Africa, are now made; and it is a miserable fact to record that giraffes are now slaughtered by native and Boer hunters almost solely for the value of the hide, which is worth from £3 to £5 in the case of full-grown beasts. So perishes the giraffe from South Africa.
Photo by W. P. Dando] [Regent's Park.
MALE SOUTHERN GIRAFFE.
The coloration of these animals harmonises exactly with the dark and light splashes of their surroundings.
Giraffes live mainly in forest country, or country partially open and partially clothed with thin, park-like stretches of low acacia-trees. When pursued, they betake themselves to the densest parts of the bush and timber, and, their thick hides being absolutely impervious to the frightful thorns with which all African jungle and forest seem to be provided, burst through every bushy obstacle with the greatest ease. They steer also in the most wonderful manner through the timber, ducking branches and evading tree-boles with marvellous facility. I shall never forget seeing my hunting comrade after his first chase in thick bush. We had ridden, as we always rode hunting, in our flannel shirts, coatless. Attracted by his firing, I came up with my friend, who was sitting on the body of a huge old bull giraffe, which had fallen dead in a grassy clearing. He was looking ruefully at the remains of his shirt, which hung about him, literally in rags and ribbons. Blood was streaming from innumerable wounds upon his chest, neck, and arms. Always after that we donned cord coats, when running giraffes in bush and forest country.
