Buffon's Natural History. Volume 08 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &cBuffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
History
Buffon's Natural History. Volume 08 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
Natural history
Gillius's description seems still better than that of Belon. "I have
seen (says Gillius, chap. ix.) three camelopards at Cairo; on their
heads are two horns six inches long, and in the middle of their
forehead a tubercle rises to about the height of two inches, which
appears like a third horn. This animal is sixteen feet high when he
holds up his head. Its neck alone is seven feet, and it is twenty-two
feet long from the tip of the nose to the end of the tail; its fore
and hind legs are nearly of an equal height; but the thighs before are
so long in comparison to those behind, that its back inclines like the
roof of an house. Its whole body is sprinkled with large yellow spots
which are nearly of a square form. Its feet are cloven like the ox;
its upper lip hangs over the under; its tail is slender, with hair on
it to the very point; it ruminates like the ox, and, like that animal,
feeds upon herbage; its mane extends from the top of the head to the
back. When it walks it seems as if its legs and flanks on both sides
were alternately lame; and when it grazes, or drinks, it is obliged to
spread its fore legs prodigiously wide."
Gesner affirms, upon the authority of Belon, that this animal sheds
its horns like the deer; but I must confess that I never could find
such a fact asserted in that author. He merely says, as above, that
the horns of the camelopard are covered with hair; and he only speaks
in one other place of that animal, namely, when treating of the axis,
where he says, "The camelopard has a white skin, with broad spots
sprinkled over it, which, though red, are not so deep as those of the
axis." This fact, which however I have not been able to meet with in
any part of Belon's work, would be of great importance to decide the
nature of the giraffe, for if it sheds its horns every year it belongs
to the stag kind; and, on the contrary, if its horns are permanent,
it must be considered as belonging to the ox or goat species; but,
without this precise knowledge, we cannot assert, as our nomenclators
have done, that the giraffe is of the stag genus; and we are not a
little surprised that Hasselquist, who has given a very long and
dry description of this animal, has been silent as to its nature.
After having methodically, that is to say, scholastically, heaped
together a hundred useless and trifling characters, he does not say
a single word on the substance of the horns, and leaves us ignorant
whether they are solid or hollow, or whether they fall off or not. I
refer to the description of Hasselquist, not for its utility, but for
its singularity, and to excite travellers to make use of their own
knowledge, and not to view objects through the spectacles of other men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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