Photo by A. S. Rutland & Sons.
A GIRAFFE GRAZING.
Grazing is evidently not the natural mode of feeding of these animals, which are essentially browsers.
In regions where they have been little disturbed, giraffes no doubt wander across open plains, and are to be seen well away from the denser forests, feeding among scattered islets of acacias, easily exposed to the human eye. But in South Africa they are now seldom to be met with out of the forest region. Once, and once only, have I seen giraffes in the open. This was on the outskirts of the forest, and the great creatures had been tempted to a little knoll of mokala trees, rising like an islet from the sea of grass.
One's first impression of these creatures in the wild state is very deceptive. I well remember first setting eyes upon a troop of five or six. As they swung away from the leafage on which they were feeding, my friend and I cantered easily, thinking that we should soon come up with them. We were completely deceived. With those immense legs of theirs, the great creatures, going with their easy, shuffling, but marvellously swift walk, were simply striding away from us. Discovering our mistake, we rode hard, and the giraffes then broke into their strange, rocking gallop, and a headlong, desperate chase began, to be terminated by the death of a fine cow. Like the camel, the giraffe progresses by moving the two legs upon either side of the body simultaneously. At this strange, rocking gallop these animals move at a great pace, and a good Cape horse is needed to run into them. By far the best plan, if you are bent on shooting these animals, is to press your pony, so soon as you sight giraffes, to the top of its speed, and force the game beyond its natural paces in one desperate gallop of a couple of miles or so. If well mounted, your nag will take you right up to the heels of the tall beasts, and, firing from the saddle, you can, without great difficulty, bring down the game. The giraffe, unlike the antelopes of Africa, is not very tenacious of life, and a bullet planted near the root of the tail will, penetrating the short body, pierce a vital spot, and bring down the tall beast crashing to earth. Having tasted the delights of fox-hunting and many other forms of sport, I can testify that the run up to a good troop of giraffes is one of the most thrilling and exciting of all human experiences. There is nothing else quite like it in the wide range of sporting emotions. Having enjoyed this thrilling pleasure a few times, however, the humane hunter will stay his hand, and shoot only when meat, or perhaps an exceptionally fine specimen, is absolutely needed. Giraffes are, of course, utterly defenceless, and, save for their shy, wary habits and remote, waterless habitat, have nothing to shield them from the mounted hunter.
Giraffe-hunting on foot is a very different matter. In that case the giraffe has the better of it, and the stalker is placed at great disadvantage. These animals are in many places found in extremely waterless country, where even the mounted hunter has much trouble to reach them. Like elands and gemsbok and other desert-loving antelopes, they can exist for long periods—months together—without drinking. In the northern portions of the Kalahari Desert, where I have carefully observed their habits, as well as hunted them, it is an undoubted fact that giraffes never touch water during the whole of the dry winter season—for several months on end. Gemsbok and elands in the same waterless tract of country are complete abstainers for the same period. The flesh of a giraffe cow, if fairly young, is excellent, tender, and well tasted, with a flavour of game-like veal. The marrow-bones also, roasted over a gentle wood fire, and sawn in half, afford delicious eating, quite one of the supreme delicacies of the African wilderness.
Photo by Charles Knight] [Aldershot.
A GIRAFFE BROWSING.
Here the posture is seen to be thoroughly natural.