The Giraffe and Okapi 267

fact that giraffes never touch water during the whole of the dry winter season for several months on end. Gremsbok 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.

THE OKAPI.

BY SIR HARRY JOHNSTON, K.C.B., F.Z.S.

in all probability readers of HEADERS of " The Living Animals of the World " are newspapers, and it would therefore be affectation on the part of the writer of these lines to assume that they have not heard more or less of the discovery which he was privileged to make of an entirely new ruminant of large size, dwelling in the forests bordering the Semliki Kiver, in Central Africa, on the borderland between the Uganda Protectorate and the Congo Free State. The history of this discovery, stated briefly, is as follows: In 1882-83 I was the guest of Mr. (now Sir Henry) Stanley on the Kiver Congo at Stanley Pool. I was visiting the Congo at that time as an explorer in a very small way and a naturalist. Mr. Stanley, conversing with me on the possibility of African discoveries, told me then that he believed that all that was most wonderful in tropical Africa would be found to be concentrated in the region of the Blue Mountains, south of the Albert Nyanza. This feeling on Stanley's part doubtless was one of the reasons which urged him to go to the relief of Emin Pasha. His journey through the great Congo Forest towards the Blue Mountains of the Albert Nyanza resulted in his discovery of the greatest snow mountain-range of Africa, Euwenzori, and the river Semliki, which is the Upper Albertine Nile; of Lake Albert Edward, from which it flows round the flanks of Euwenzori; and, amongst other Photo by Charles Knight] [Aldershot. things, in more detailed information regarding the A GIRAFFE BROWSING. is seen to be thoroughly natural.dwarf races of the Northern Congo forests than we Here the posture had yet received. Stanley also was the first to draw the attention of the world to the dense and awful character of these mighty woods, and to hint at the mysteries and wonders in natural history which they possibly contained. The stress and trouble of his expedition prevented him and his companions from bestowing much attention on natural history; moreover, in these forests it is extremely difficult for persons who are passing hurriedly through the tangle to come into actual contact with the beasts that since my return frominhabit them. Sir Henry Stanley, discussing this subject with me is only one amongst several strange newUganda, tells me that he believes that the okapi describes having seenbeasts which will be eventually discovered in these remarkable forests. He a creature like a gigantic pig 6 feet in length, and certain antelopes unlike any known type. In regard to the okapi, the only hint of its existence which he obtained was the announcement that the dwarfs knew of the existence of a creature in their forests which greatly resembled an ass in appearance, and which they caught in pits. This tiny sentence in an appendix to attention some time before I went to Uganda.his book " In Darkest Africa " attracted my like a horse should inhabit a denseIt seemed to me so extraordinary that any creature

forest, that I determined, if ever fate should lead me in that direction, I would make enquiries. Soon after reaching the Uganda Protectorate at the end of 1899, I came in contact with a large party of dwarfs who had been kidnapped by a too enterprising German impresario, who had decided to show them at the Paris Exhibition. As the Belgians objected to this procedure, for some months inI released the dwarfs from their kidnapper, and retained them with me Uganda, until I was able personally to escort them back to their homes in the Congo Forest. I had other reasons connected with my Government business for visiting the north-western ofpart of the Congo Free State. As soon as I could make the dwarfs understand me by means an interpreter, I questioned them regarding the existence of this horse-like creature in their forests. They at once understood what I meant; and pointing to a zebra-skin and a live mule, in question, which was called OKAPI, was like a mule withthey informed me that the creature zebra stripes on it. When I reached Fort Mbeni, in the Congo Free State, on the west bank of the river Semliki, I put questions to the Belgian officers stationed there. They all knew the okapi, at any rate, when dead. As a living animal they had none of them seen it, but their native soldiers were in the habit of hunting the animal in the forest and killing it with spears, and then bringing in the skin and the flesh for use in the fort. One of the officers declared there was even then a freshly obtained skin lying about in the precincts of the fort. On searching for this, however, it was discovered that the greater part of it had been thrown away, only the gaudier portions having been cut into strips by the soldiers to be made into bandoliers. These strips, together with similar ones obtained from natives in the forest, I sent to England, to Dr. P. L. Sclater, for his consideration. Furnished by the Belgian officers with guides, and all the dwarfs whom Photo by York & Son] _Kotting Hill. taking with me MALE AND FEMALE GIRAFFES. I had brought from Uganda, I entered Giraffes are said to be very affectionate animals. the forest, and remained there for some days searching for the okapi. All this time I was convinced that I was on the track of a species of horse; and therefore when the natives showed the tracks of a cloven-footed animal like the eland, and told us these were the foot-prints of the okapi, I disbelieved them, and imagined that we were merely following a forest-eland. We never saw the okapi; and as the life in the forest made the whole expedition extremely ill, and my time was required for official work elsewhere, I was obliged to give up this search. Meantime, I had elicited from the natives, whom I questioned closely, that the okapi was a creature without horns or any means of offence, the size of a large antelope or mule, which inhabited only the densest parts of the forest and generally went about in pairs, male and female. It lived chiefly on leaves. The Belgian officers, seeing that I was disappointed at not obtaining a complete skin, offered to use their best efforts to obtain one for me, and send it on to Uganda after my departure.

This promise was eventually redeemed by Mr. Karl Eriksson, a Swedish officer in the Belgian service. Mr. Eriksson sent me a complete skin and two skulls. The skin and the

THE OKAPI OF THE CONGO FOREST.

Previous to the discovery of this ruminant the giraffe stood alone among the mammals of the world, Tt has now at least one living relative,

of the World270 The Living Animals bigger of the two skulls belonged to a young male. This is the skin which is now set up in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, and of which a photographic illustration accompanies this notice. Upon receiving this skin, I saw at once what the okapi was namely, a close relation of the giraffe. From the very small development of the horn-bosses, I believed that it was nearer allied to the helladotherium than to the living giraffe. In forwarding the specimens to Professor Kay Lankester, I therefore proposed that it should be called examined the specimens with aHelladoiherium tigrinum. Professor Ray Lankester, having closely allied togreater knowledge than I possessed, decided that the animal was rather more the giraffe than to the helladotherium, but that it possessed sufficient peculiarities of its own to oblige him to create for its reception a new genus, which he proposed to call Ocapia.

Meantime, the original strips of the skin (which apparently belonged to an older and larger animal than the specimen mounted at South Kensington) had been pronounced by experts to whom they were submitted to be the skin of an undiscovered species of horse, and this supposed new horse had been tentatively named by Dr. P. L. Sclater Equus johnstoni. The full discovery obliged Professor Ray Lankester to set aside any idea of the okapi being allied to the Copyright photograph by Hutchinson & Co. horse, but he was HEAD OF OKAPI. good enough to attach The enormous size of the ears is very noteworthy. Mr. Sclater's specific name of johnstoni to his newly founded genus of Ocapia. Up to the time of writing this is all that is known of this extraordinary survival in the discoveries Congo Forest of the only living relation of the giraffe. We know by palseontological in Europe and in Asia that there existed a large family of ruminants which in their development and features were neither of the Ox group nor of the Deer, but in some respects occupied a position midway between these two branches of cloven-hoofed, horned, ruminating Ungulates. To this family the Giraffe, the Okapi, the Helladotherium, the Samotherium, the Sivatherium, and the Bramatherium belong. In all probability bony projections arose from the skulls of these creatures similar in some measure to the prominent bony cores of the horns of oxen. From the top, however, of these bony cores there would seem to have arisen anciently antlers, possibly deciduous like those of the prongbuck. In time creatures like the giraffe lost any need for such weapons of offence, and ceased to grow antlers; but the bony cores from which these antlers once proceeded still remained, and in the case of the giraffe remaii to the present day. In the helladotherium and in the okapi these bony cores have dwindled to mere bumps.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE DEER TRIBE.

BY H. A. BRYDEN.

represent as a family the non-domesticated class of ruminants. Generally speaking, the males are distinguished by antlers, which are shed periodically, usually once a year,DEER and again renewed. Comprising as it does some of the noblest mammals to be found on the face of the earth, this large and important tribe is to be found distributed over a large portion of the world's surface, from the Arctic North, the home of the wild reindeer, to Patagonia, in Southern South America. Deer are, however, not found in the continent of Africa south of the Sahara, nor in Madagascar or Australia. They are not indigenous to New Zealand; but the red deer, introduced there some years ago for purposes of sport, have thriven wonderfully well, and are now completely acclimatised.

From the earliest times deer, especially those species known as the true or typical deer, of which red deer may be said to be a type, have been animals of considerable importance is still, even into mankind. Their flesh has been always eagerly sought after; deer-skin these days of high civilisation, useful for many purposes; and the antlers are almost equally in request. It is more than probable that, in the vast and still little-explored regions of Central, East, and Northern Asia, new species of deer remain to be discovered. At the present time there are known to exist, in various parts of the world, close on a hundred species and varieties. Within the space allotted to these animals it is, of course, manifestly impossible to notice all these in anything like detail. Many of the varieties or subspecies closely resemble one another, so much so that the differences between them are only apparent to the eyes of naturalists or acute observers.

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