Besides the common eland of Southern, Central, and Eastern Africa, another distinct species is met with in Senegal and the Gambia Colony. This is the DERBIAN ELAND, about which animal our knowledge is still very slight, as I believe that it has never yet been shot skulls and horns and a few skinsnor its habits studied by a European traveller. A good many have been obtained from natives, from which it appears that in general colour this species is of a rich reddish-fawn colour, becoming nearly white below, the middle of the belly being black. The neck is covered with long hair of a dark brown or black colour, blacker towards the shoulder than in front. A broad black stripe extends all down the centre of the back from the neck to the root of the tail, and there are large black patches on the backs and inner sides of the fore legs above the knees. On each side of the body and haunches there are thirteen or fourteen narrow white stripes. The horns are larger and more massive and divergent than in the common eland. The Derbian eland is said to be a forest - loving animal, never of its own accord coming out into the plains. It lives in small herds, is very shy and not at all abundant, and browses on the Photo by W. P. Dando] {Regent's Park. leaves and young BULL ELAND. shoots of various The flesh of the eland is of better flavour than that of most other large game. If sheltered in winter, the species will thrive in English parks. trees and bushes.

till Photo by W. P. Dando)

THE SOUTHERN GIRAFFE,

The tallest mammal ever known to walk the earth. 263

CHAPTER XVI.

THE GIRAFFE AND OKAPI.

THE GIRAFFE.

BY H. A. BRYDEN.

IKAFFES, 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. Riitimeyer, the Swiss naturalist, once defined them as " a most fantastic form of deer," wThich 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. Of living giraffes, two species have thus far been identified, the SOUTHERN or CAPE GIRAFFE, with 1 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,

Photo by Miss E. J. Beck. from its recent appearance in the Gardens of

SOUTHERN GIRAFFE LYING DOWN. the Zoological Society, is now the more familiar to Victoria This giraffe was a present Queen its after arrival.; it only lived fourteen of the two animals, has a creamy or yellowish- days 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 or dappledpolygonal patterns. At no great distance this giraffe, instead of having the blotchy 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 264

The Giraffe and Okapi 265 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 11^ 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 is absolutely mute, and never,tender and melting in expression. Singularly enough, the animal 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 is extraordinarilyhoofs, and the fetlock is round and smooth. The skin of a full-grown giraffe 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 J3 to 5 in the case of full-grown beasts. So perishes the giraffe from South Africa.

Giraffes live mainly in forest country, or country partially open and partially clothed with thin, park-like stretches of low acacia-tree.s. 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 Photo by W. P. Dando] [Regent's Park. ruefully at the remains of his shirt, which hung MALE SOUTHERN GIRAFFE. about him, literally in rags and ribbons. Blood The coloration of these animals harmonises exactly with the dark of their surroundings. was streaming from innumerable wounds upon and light splashes 34

his chest, neck, and arms. Always after that we donned cord coats, when running giraffes in bush and forest country. 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

Photo 6y A. S. Kudfond fc -Sons. the great creatures had been

A GIRAFFE GRAZING.

tempted to a little knoll of Grazing is evidently not the natural mode of feeding of these animals, which are essentially browsers. 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 if youa great pace, and a good Cape horse is needed to run into them. By far the best plan, 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 is oneother forms of sport, I can testify that the run up to a good troop of giraffes else quiteof the most thrilling and exciting of all human experiences. There is nothing 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

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