THE MEMINNA MUSK.

Meminna. BUFF. Indian Musk. PENN.

This species has been sometimes confounded with the Pygmæus musk, but is very dissimilar. It is of a yellowish gray colour; the haunches and sides are spotted and barred with white,* its ears are long and open, and its tail short. This animal is not larger than a hare, but exactly resembles a fallow deer. They can subsist only in a warm climate, being so extremely delicate that it is with difficulty they can be brought alive into Europe, where they soon perish. In addition to their beauty, they are exceedingly gentle and familiar.

THE BRAZILIAN MUSK.

Biche de Guiane. DE MARCHAIS.

These animals are about the size of a roebuck; eyes large and black; nostrils wide; the hinder legs longer than the fore legs, and the tail about six inches long; the head and neck tawny; back, sides, and thighs, of a bright rust colour; the lower part of the belly, and inside of the thighs, white. They inhabit Guiana and Brazil, are excessively timid, but remarkably active and swift. Like goats, they can stand with all their four legs placed together on the point of a rock. The Indians hunt them, and their flesh is esteemed very delicate. They are frequently seen swimming in the rivers, and are then easily caught.

THE JAVA MUSK

Is, as its name imports, a native of the island of Java; the body is ferruginous above, beneath white; the tail

* See Plate XXII.

longish; the neck gray, mixed with brown hairs; beneath white, with two gray spots; the nose and ears are almost destitute of hair, and the size of the animal does not exceed that of the rabbit. In the Leverian Museum was a small species of the musk, called " the small spotted musk." In size it scarcely exceeded the pigmy musk; but doubts are entertained of its having attained its full growth, from the fineness and closeness of the hair. The colour was a ferruginous brown, and spotted above with white. Dr. Shaw says, that the animal in question appears to be nearly allied to one represented by Pelia, who says it is a native of Surinam, and describes it as of a ferruginous colour, thickly. spotted with white, except on the head, breast, and belly; and that it is in all probability the same.

THE GIRAFFE, OR CAMELOPARD.

Cervus Camelopardalis. LINN. La Giraffe. BUFF.

This most extraordinary creature is so very different in its make from any other known quadruped, that it would be difficult to form an adequate idea of it without seeing the animal, or its portrait. The giraffe is the tallest of quadrupeds. It is a ruminating animal, and chews the cud. Its favourite food, in its native country, is the leaf of an acacia, distinguished from the rest of the tribe by the name of acacia xariffiana, the twigs of which are succulent; and it browses on the upper branches. It grazes also; but not often, as the country which it inhabits affords but little pasturage.

Linnæus considered the giraffe as a sort of cervus. In this he was not singular, for he had the example of Gesner, and other nomenclators before him; but from the structure of the horns, and the peculiar arrangement of the teeth, it is clear that the giraffe is an animal of another genus, distinct from that of the cervus. Gmelin removed it from

the cervus genus, in the last edition of the Systema Naturæ, to that of camelopardalis, where it stands at present a solitary example of this curious genus. The giraffe inhabits the vast forests of Ethiopia, and the interior parts of Africa, which have been undisturbed by the residence of man, almost as high as Senegal, where it is seen sometimes in herds of seven or eight; but is not found in Guinea, or any of the western parts.

The existence of an animal so strongly distinguished in its organic structure and size from all other known quadrupeds as the giraffe, appears to have been very generally doubted by the moderns, until about the middle of the last century. Even Pennant says, " I saw the skin of a young one at Leyden, well stuffed and preserved, otherwise I might possibly have entertained doubts in respect to the existence of so extraordinary a quadruped." Buffon (Hist. Nat. tom. xiii.) has endeavoured to describe, but has not attempted to delineate, the giraffe; and has, with other zoologists, fallen into the error of stating, that the fore legs of the animal are twice as long as the hinder ones. Till the year 1827, when another in France,* the

a giraffe arrived in England, and animal had not been seen in Europe for upwards of three

*These two animals being considered as acceptable to royalty, were sent by Mohammed Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, as presents to their majesties the Kings of Great Britain and France. Shortly afterwards two others were also sent to Europe one to Venice, and one to Constantinople; both these, as well as the one in England, are since dead: the latter was about four years old when it died, and had grown about eighteen inches during the two years it lived in England. On its arrival it measured from the top of the head to the bottom of the hoof, ten feet eight inches; while the height of that which is now living in the Jardin du Roi is about fifteen feet. Both these animals were procured from the Arabs by the governor of Sennaar, a large town of Nubia, and forwarded to the Pasha of Egypt, who determined upon sending them as above named; but as there was some difference in the size, the consuls of each nation drew lots for them. The shortest and weakest fell to the lot of England; and from this creature it was hardly possible to form a correct opinion of its natural capacities and habits. Its

centuries, when the Soldan of Egypt sent one to Lorenzo de' Medici; but it was known to the Romans in early times. According to Pliny, it was exhibited by Cæsar the dictator in the Circæan games. It was afterwards more frequently introduced: Pompey exhibited at one time no fewer than ten upon the theatre. It was the barbarous pleasure of the people at that period to see the most terrible and the most extraordinary animals produced in combat against each other. The lion, the lynx, the tiger, the elephant, the hippopotamus, were all let loose promiscuously, and were seen to inflict indiscriminate destruction. Aurelian exhibited the giraffe, and other remarkable animals, in his triumph on the conquest of Palmyra; and Heliodorus speaks of it as being brought, with various presents, by the Ethiopian ambassadors to Rome. It is also represented, among other rare animals, on the Prænestine pavement, made by the direction of Sylla, and is exhibited in its natural attitudes, both of grazing and browsing: yet it was not till within the last forty years that we obtained any precise notions of the form and habits of the giraffe; and these we principally owe to Le Vaillant. "If height alone," he observes, "constituted precedency among quadrupeds, the giraffe would undoubt

limbs were deformed by the treatment it experienced from the Arabs in its overland journey from Sennaar to Cairo, it being occasionally confined on the back of a camel; and when huddled together for this purpose, the cords that were used, and the manner of tying them, left evident marks of the torture this poor animal must have endured. On her first arrival in England she was exceedingly playful, yet gentle, and perfectly harmless. Her usual food was ash-leaves, oats, barley, and beans (which were split); and her beverage was milk, of which she drank about eight or ten quarts per day: but she soon became weak and inactive. Indeed, this weakness increased so much, that it became necessary to construct a pulley, which was suspended from the ceiling of her hovel; to this was attached a cord or band, which was fastened round her body for the purpose of raising her on her legs without any exertion on her part. She appeared to know her keeper; and her attention was readily attracted by the objects with which she was surrounded, till she died.

edly claim the first rank, measuring, when full grown, near seventeen feet, from the top of the head to the fore feet." In this passage, however, Vaillant speaks only of the male, the female being smaller. Sonnini fully confirms the testimony of Vaillant in respect to the vast stature of the giraffe, observing, that they sometimes attain to the height of seventeen or eighteen feet. Vosmor goes further, and declares that some very respectable inhabitants of the Cape of Good Hope assured him, that they had seen and killed giraffes which, including the horns, were twenty-two Rhinland feet in height, or nearly twenty-three feet of our measure. partially considering, however, all that has been said on this subject by writers in general, we may allow sixteen or seventeen feet to be the common height of this animal when full grown.

4

Im

The male and the female giraffe resemble each other when young; but as the animal advances in age, the spots on the male become dark brown, while those on the female continue of a ferruginous cast: the latter is, however, said to acquire the dusky shades of the male when very old. There is a tubercle on the forehead, which occurs in both sexes; but it is smaller on that of the female than on that of the male; and the female has also four teats as in the cow. According to the account of the natives, she goes with young about twelve months, and has one at a birth. The teeth in the giraffe, thirty-two in number, are situated thus: six grinders on each side, in both the upper and under jaw; no front teeth in the upper jaw, but eight in the lower, broad and thin, and the outer ones deeply bilobate. The horns, both from their size and form (which exist in both sexes), seem intended merely for ornament, as they are never used in resisting any attack, and are not deciduous. They are about six inches in length, and consist of a porous bony substance, forming, as it were, a part of the skull, and cannot be shed like the horns of the deer. They are of a texture altogether different, not only from those of the animals of