Home › Contents › Beautiful Giraffe or Camelopard
Beautiful Giraffe or Camelopard
herds containing thirty where to be met with in great numbers. to sixteen; but I have not unfrequently In countries unmolested by the intrusive met with Individuals, and on one occasion I are unavailing. The Giraffe must numcounted forty together; this, however, ber man also among its enemies. The was owing to chance, and about sixteen Hottentots hold its flesh in high esteem. may be reckoned as the average number By lying in wait for it at a favorite feedof a herd. These herds are composed of ing or watering-place, they shoot it with Giraffes of various sizes, from the young poisoned arrows. The more frequent use Giraffe of nine or ten feet in height, to the dark chestnut-colored old bull of the herd, whose exalted head towers above his companions.
Some writers have discovered ugliness and a want of grace in the Giraffe, but I of fire-arms in hunting this beautiful animal will certainly before long lead to a complete annihilation of these wonderful and docile creatures. The Giraffe in America.
Giraffes have been brought to the consider that he is one of the most strik- United States at different times in the ingly beautiful animals in the creation; last forty years; but they soon die, even and when a herd of them is seen scattered in the hands of the most careful and exthrough a grove of the picturesque perienced keepers of menageries. The parasol-topped acacias which adorn their celebrated manager, General Welsh, who native plains, and on whose uppermost died in Philadelphia, actually fitted out shoots they are enabled to browse by the and headed a hunting expedition into the colossal height with which nature has so interior of Africa, from the Cape of Good admirably endowed them, he must, in- Hope, in pursuit of Giraffes. Two were deed, be slow of conception who fails to brought to this country by him. They discover both grace and dignity in all their movements. were the most delicately formed and beautifully colored animals ever seen; It is very difficult, almost impossible, having very light brown spots on a cream to take a mature Giraffe alive; for they colored ground. They were the first livrun with such speed and with a succes- ing specimens of the Giraffe ever imported sion of such wonderful bounds, that the into this country; but they lived only a swiftest horses can scarcely overtake few months after their arrival. A very them. In order to capture them, the large one, with darker spots, was afterperiod when the young are sucklings is wards exhibited, which was imported by selected, when, if the captor is fortunate the way of Egypt. Figures of the Giraffe, enough to keep the youngster alive for a accurately outlined, occur frequently on few days, it becomes quiet and even tame; the ancient monuments of Egypt. but very often the poor captive refuses all nourishment and dies of consumption.
The Foes of the Giraffe.
The reader will be interested in the account given by a "Yankee traveller," of a Giraffe hunt. He was out with some The chief enemies of the Giraffe are native Kaffirs in pursuit of game, and the lion and panther. In the open plain suddenly came upon a herd of these it distances them with ease; but if it is animals. He thus describes what folsurprised from ambush, it exhibits both lowed: "Forward we dashed, as the courage and strength in resisting its strange wild things went off at a gallop assailant, striking with its forefeet with that promised soon to place them far such force as to prove occasionally fatal beyond our reach; their long legs flying to the foe; but too frequently its efforts out to an extraordinary distance, and in a most absurd-looking manner. Unaccus- further suffering; and what, but a tomed to firing on horseback, I only moment before, had been scampering wounded the animal I had selected, but wild, free, and happy over the plains, was my.comrade, cunningly jumping to the now a still and lifeless mass at our feet, ground, and taking a steady aim, brought It was worse than shooting Kaffirs, for down one of the largest of the herd. they would stick you as full of spears as a "By this time two of our Kaffirs had pincushion is of pins-and with but very come up, and they rushed upon the slight compunction either-if they could. wounded but struggling Giraffe. The "We found the meat very white, tender excitement of the chase was over, and Il and esculent, with a flavor a little of pork
